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A Certain Tendency in American Songwriting1

A MANIFESTO

Section 1

No, Don, the Levee Wasn’t Dry—and No One Was Drinking Whiskey and Rye....

If they cannot be believed even in the very first thing they say and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be believed in anything they say afterwards. — Thomas Paine

Don McLean’s “American Pie” has been one of the most celebrated songs of recent decades—do a quick web search and you’ll occasionally even encounter it named the best song ever written. It’s regularly trotted out as a fine example of ‘Poetic Lyrics’ in popular songwriting, and there’ve surely been countless precocious high schoolers and callow undergraduates who’ve written term papers of which they’re quite proud, dissecting the song; detecting references and deducing ‘hidden meanings’ contained therein.

The chorus—almost always regarded as the most important part of any song lyric, and necessarily repeated several times (seven in “American Pie”)—goes as follows:

Bye, bye Miss American Pie.
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye,
Singin’ “This’ll be the day that I die;
This’ll be the day that I die.”2

What I find so annoying is the utter clumsiness—clumsiness not just motored by once and quickly (and so possibly pardonable in a rush of more resonant phrases and melody) but repeated, emphasized, hammered home, with all those iterations.

Levees are never ‘dry’—or wet—unless we’re talking about a recent rain or a dropped soda. A levee is not a body of water, but an earthwork that contains a body of water. One might note, similarly, that a lake might be dry; but not a bridge. Nor a levee. Period.

And rye? Rye is a kind of whiskey—so “drinking whiskey and rye” is roughly equivalent to “eating eggs and egg yolks” or “watching television and a television show”.

Again, one can perhaps generously excuse a less-well written phrase if it comes in a tightly wrapped package of other ideas and observations, some or most of which stand strongly on their own—or comes along just once, possibly, in passing. That’s not what’s happening here, however—we’re just getting hit with one inanely half-baked notion after the other, with really nothing worthy of attention along the way, and then we’re to endure it all again, and again, and again....

There’s no reason to treat writing of such abysmal conception and execution with much more than ridicule and dismissal—and, more substantively (and perhaps unfortunately), to take seriously anything else delivered in the song. To repeat, the chorus above is the very heart of it—the part that needs to be the most elegant, precise, evocative and/or clear. And frankly, if a songwriter can’t even clear that fundamental hurdle, his or her extrapolations, illustrations, allusions and digressions likely do not merit further examination. So, um—ya got anything else, Don?

One can actually find, believe it or not, an apologetics that asserts McLean was referring to a supposed bar called The Levee in his hometown of New Rochelle that closed down—so it went “dry”—forcing drinkers to drive a couple of towns away to imbibe in the town of Rye, and that McLean is actually singing “drinking whiskey IN Rye”. I’m not going to waste my time investigating this—for two reasons. (Well, three if you count that life is too short to squander on deference to obvious stupidities—I also don’t spend time pondering if Elvis is still alive, or if he was the Second Shooter firing from the Grassy Knoll.)

First off, he’s not singing “whiskey IN Rye”—that’s pretty danged clear. (I’ll deal with aspects and examples of popular song criticism that are similarly wild-eyed and fatuous—sometimes from otherwise ostensibly knowledgeable and very respected critics—later in this manifesto.)

Secondly, if he actually were so profoundly self-referential and self-indulgent, it would make the entire song unhinged and self-absorbed to the point of insignificance. (I’ll propose some basic public and creative responsibilities in songwriting later on as well.)

Then there’s the vacant title—in that chorus, so also repeated seven times. “Miss American Pie” being a heavy-handed manufacture of ostensible cultural personification, but with the critical deficiency that it really has no connection to events in the song or to any external touchstone. (Well except to exist as a clumsy non sequitur signifier, I guess—a ‘signifier without significance’. And so yes, please, “Bye-bye....”)

The several verses are merely a superficial inventory of pop culture celebrities and events, sheathed within irritatingly coy obscurations. Why? To what purpose? Is anything served or advanced by the cutesy conceits (the Jester, King, Jack Flash, etc) other than the songwriter’s adolescent hubris?

In the end, there’s no necessity in treating writing this ineffectual, despite all that blunderbussing—and this assertively, repeatedly delivered—seriously. Does one take anything away, really, from the disquisition? Is there even one useful insight imparted during the long commentary? For all McLean’s aspirations, and the renown the song has attained, in the end it’s but a tediously bumbling and flighty exposition, married to a generally agreeable tune that’s dispatched with bumptious assurance, and nothing more. Exanimate loquacity; reflection shorn of insight, recitation sans revelation.

And for those perhaps kinder or more indulgent toward Mr McLean’s lyrical maladroitness in “American Pie”, thinking me too exacting or categorical, I’ll later also address why such matters are in fact fundamental to capable and resonant songwriting.

1Titled with apologies to the late François Truffaut.

2“American Pie”, copyright 1971 by Don McLean. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 2

“There Goes The(?) Robert E. Lee”

Either one is serious or one is not. — Susan Sontag

Let’s look at another revered song, one that comes to us from the other direction, in that it attempts (via fictional first person chronicle) to present a very direct and immediately accessible picture of historical actuality—sans “American Pie’s” portentous trappings and ostensible poesy:

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
’Til Stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the winter of ’65; we were hungry, just barely alive.
By May tenth, Richmond had fell, it’s a time I remember oh so well,

chorus:

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringin’,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin’,
They went “Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na; Na, Na, Na, Na; Na, Na, Na, Na, Na.”

Back with my wife in Tennessee; when one day she called to me,
“Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!”
Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood,
and I don’t care if the money’s no good.
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest,
But they should never have taken the very best.

chorus repeat

Like my father before me, I will work the land,
Like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand.
He was just eighteen, proud and brave,
But a Yankee laid him in his grave,
I swear by the mud below my feet,
You can’t raise a Caine back up when he’s in defeat.

chorus repeat3

Where to begin? Well, in the beginning....

This song, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” written by The Band’s Robbie Robertson, has three verses, all of them serviceable, workmanlike. The (most important) first verse capably sets up the character, the milieu, his reactions, torment, and loss. I’m not crazy about this or that line and about some of the words chosen, but it’s generally passable work; meriting polite attention—and actually promising, even novel, given that I for one can’t think of even one other Civil War remembrance in contemporary or traditional song from either a Union or a Confederate vantage.

But then.......unfortunately........we get to the chorus. And—Oh. My. God.

Of course, there was no single “night they drove old Dixie down”, though probably the most fitting candidate for such designation would be the day Federal troops finally entered the Confederate capital, Richmond, on—I just checked—April 2nd.

Digression: So why the mention of May 10th in the song? The only significant event happening on that date was the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, camped with a small group of loyal lieutenants by a stream hundreds of miles away in south Georgia. But his apprehension was essentially an anti-climax at that point, and of far less consequence than Richmond being evacuated, Lee surrendering on April 9th, or Confederate General Joe Johnston surrendering the largest Southern army on April 26th; among other larger and smaller rebel surrenders all across the South, stretching on to June 2nd. Dwelling on the calendrical caprice is unproductive here, except to note that in a song already cataloguing lesser-known historical events—and Union General Stoneman’s cavalry raids on the Richmond & Danville Railroad are certainly that—continuing such historical authority is implicitly important; and further, affords the availability of an even wider foundation. And just tossing out a date without reason for it is a wasted opportunity. These observations and reservations may admittedly be of secondary moment, but they’re certainly neither picayune nor impertinent. Later, we’ll look at similar opportunities that were exploited rather than squandered.

By the way, “Richmond had fell”? Here’s a construction that does compel comment. It’s just plain illiterate. However—and in major contrast to the levee being dry—it comes along just once, quickly, and is immediately obscured by the depth of the personal reflection evoked in “it’s a time I remember oh so well”. It can be charitably indulged, perhaps, if not entirely excused.

But let’s move on, because it’s the chorus as a whole that is such an incredibly cavernous and consummate disaster.

And after addressing it, we’ll even investigate a wholly entertaining and wild-eyed pretext for it. Fasten your seat belts. We didn’t chase the hare-brained “drinking whiskey in Rye” earlier, but we’ll scamper after this Carrollian white rabbit just for the fun of it here.

The night they drove old Dixie down (whatever date we’re agreeing that was, though again the only reasonable one is when Union troops captured the Confederate capital, and it’s clear that’s the area the singer was in at the time) “and all the bells were ringing”. WHAT? Richmond set ablaze by retreating rebels, prison inmates all escaped and on the loose, liquored-up mobs looting the stores, the arsenal blown up in a blast so large it shattered windows and toppled cemetery tombstones over a mile away, the remaining populace braced for even worse from invading Yankee hordes—and they’re ringing bells? Bells don’t get rung all over a city in observance of defeat (or by fire departments, none of which are gonna be functional or even staffed in such chaos). They weren’t in 1945 Berlin, in 1940 Paris, or in 1814 Washington when the British set fire to the White House and US Capitol. (The only people celebrating Union victory in the South, and while celebrating doing so with necessarily extreme circumspection, were black—clearly not at all the populace the singer of this song is representing.)

And “the people were singing”? Really? The capital engulfed in flames, drunken rioters in the streets—and if you didn’t know that, you’d have surely assumed as much, no? (You didn’t presume the women were all tossing flowers out windows to the hated Northerners; the remaining old men and boys on their front porches offering whiskey to the detested invaders—did you? Or that everyone calmly left their threatened homes and possessions—to walk to church, where they all joined in song there?) Except for the strictly and obtusely mechanical aspect—they rhyme—the lines are utterly ignorant.

Hey look, let’s not care when or where all them danged people—whoever the hell they are—were a-singin’, okay? Maybe it was on May 10th, for whatever reason, that they all started harmonizing (even though—I just checked—that wasn’t even a Sunday but just a regular Wednesday). Maybe it’s a year later and they’re gathered in song up in Detroit. We’ll go with whatever—let’s just get to the revelation this song promises. I mean the whole thing’s a friggin’ mess, but we’ve come this far.

Yet, believe it or not, we’re still not at the most insipid part of it all—this song that began with such promise.

Because what, exactly, were “the people singing”? This is the climax of the chorus, after all—potentially the place where the song should reasonably be expected to have its greatest insight, it’s most profound and lasting resonance and revelation. So maybe it’ll all come together here—somehow justifying those preceding couple of lines and wrapping everything up in an epiphanic resolution.

Oh, no it won’t.

Incredibly—pointlessly, frivolously, idiotically—the people were all singing “Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na; Na, Na, Na, Na; Na, Na, Na, Na, Na.”! (Even while typing this—and having heard the song countless times over the intervening years since it was released—I can’t help but shake my head in disbelieving derision....)

This is songwriting so ineffectual, so nonessential—so ultimately impotent—that it should be laughed at in contempt.

Yet here’s what a few major, widely-respected critics have written about it:

Ralph J. Gleason: “Nothing I have read...has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does...‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ is a remarkable song...It has that ring of truth, and the whole aura of authenticity.”4

Greil Marcus: “What it says was clear from the moment it was released...its power, though, is too great to take for granted...You can’t get out from under the singer’s truth...to this day none of us has escaped its impact, what we share is an ability to respond to a story like this one.”5

Gilbert Cruz: “One of Time Magazine’s Top One Hundred Songs of All Time.”6

My heart goes out to these fellows. They’re all surely bright, generally perceptive guys, and they all certainly and sincerely wanted to hear and engage a substantive and evocative, intelligent piece of lyric writing on this unusual topic, from this unheard quarter—as would I, myself a Southerner. So they simply ignored the actuality...and wrote about what they’d have liked to experience.

So, now, ready to dart down the rabbit hole? Hold on, here we go!

You can encounter an ‘interpretation’ of the song from fervent fans who realize it’s a mess and so desperately want to reconcile it with facts. It goes like this: our narrator, clearly so concerned with immediate events (‘the night they drove old Dixie down’), the fall of the Confederacy, his family and dead brother, has, for some reason, suddenly whip-lashed his focus to describe things up in New York and Massachusetts and Ohio—they were ringing bells and singing. Or maybe it was those invading troops in Richmond. There’s not a single word to support that—no “meanwhile, up north”, “on the other side” or similar, but the reasoning is that because it’s so incredibly stupid the way it is, and as surely the songwriter couldn’t be so incompetent, then this must be what’s happening. (Are you enjoying things so far? Well here comes the real fun part.) Those “Na-Na-Na-Na-Na’s” aren’t really that at all. See, here’s what you’re apparently supposed to picture: start with a bunch of third graders out in a schoolyard taunting a playmate, sashaying from side to side, all with thumbs in their ears and fingers wiggling, sticking out their tongues and chorusing in sing-songy, “Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah!” Okay, NOW substitute lines of grizzled, bearded uniformed soldiers for those kids. (Laughing yet?) “Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah!” I honestly love this. It’s right out of Monty Python. Priceless.

With this ‘interpretation’—and obviously, the word should remain in quotes—the song does suddenly acquire a kinda weird schizophrenia, of course. But yes indeed, the Yankees now are ready to taunt and mock the Southerners with butts swingin’, fingers wavin’ and tongues out waggin’. Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah-Nyah! Neener-Neener-Neener!

But let’s get serious again. If Robertson wanted to move us in another direction entirely, he could’ve done so in countless ways, but perhaps the easiest would’ve been to just replace “people” with “Yankees”—no heavy lifting, no big re-write. “And all the Yankees were singing”. Two syllables squarely replacing two syllables. Simple. Done. But he didn’t do that—or anything like it. He was happy with what he had.

And what we just did a couple of paragraphs above was become suckers—we allowed ourselves to indulge dimwit apologists for the songwriter’s ineptitude and laziness. The internet is rampant with this kind of thing, of course—obsessed and gullible fans can spend many happy self-indulgent hours ‘interpreting’ and ‘deconstructing’ and debating among themselves, much like JFK conspiracy buffs, determined to make sense out of nonsense. It’s middlebrow credulity mixed with idol worship, really, resulting in pseudo-intellectual masturbation—and another sign of the innate inchoate poverty so pandemic in contemporary popular songwriting and criticism.

- - -

Though it usually in fact is, a song’s chorus doesn’t necessarily have to be the lyrically strongest part of a song. In an effort like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, for instance, with so much description and information set in the verses, the chorus could be something entirely distinct from them—and so the divergent but inane “Na-Na-Na”s replaced with something equally as divergent but genuinely evocative; like the sentiments found in a church hymn perhaps, or maybe general reflections on the senselessness of war or the panic and uncertainty born of defeat. (Imagine first jettisoning the “bells were ringing / people were singing” foolishness and replacing it with another angle of personal or general reflection from the narrator [in similarly patterned rhyming couplet], then following with a direct lift of lines from a Baptist hymnal over the extant tune—or even part of an actual hymn or pastoral folk song, including that melody or a recognizable variation on it. I’m not asserting any of this thinking is necessarily the strongest way to go, but just about anything is stronger—more integrated, substantive and consistent—than the maundering jabber there now.) Later on, we’ll also take a brief look at the obvious general folly of using “la-la-la” and similar in a song which attempts to be a serious piece of work.

Digression and pure speculation here, but I wonder if Robertson didn’t simply just get bored with his efforts. He’d done some library research—to learn about General Stoneman certainly, and to get some overall knowledge about the collapse of the Confederacy, perhaps—and maybe had enough. Time to finish this up and move on. The heavily degraded application evinced between the work in the verses and the work in the choruses is so marked it does kinda smack of “Damn, can I go home now? Time for a drink. Hell, I’ll just pad this out with something-something ‘ringing/singing’ and a whole big ol’ shitload of ‘na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na’ and so what? Good enough.” Again, just a gut suspicion here—and who really cares—but when you look at the lopsided whole, something like that seems plausible.7

- - -

As for the heading of this section—“There goes the(?) Robert E. Lee”—this quotes one of Joan Baez’s at best ignorant bastardizations of the song in her hit version of it; a song that’s already, as established above, largely a piece of confused babble. “The Robert E. Lee” was a paddle-wheel steamboat plying the Mississippi River in the latter 1800s. While one can obviously accept seeing it might elicit bystander interest, this has NOTHING AT ALL to do with ANYTHING in the song. I’ll not take time here detailing the incoherencies she cavalierly inflicts on the piece, and how simple laziness (just not caring) brought them about—it’s admittedly a bit of a divagation—but do some web searches if you’re curious. The song may not deserve great respect, but her departures and interpolations only compound its problems. And it all underscores, again, the overwhelming superciliousness and superficiality pandemic in popular song and popular song criticism.

3“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, copyright 1969 by Robbie Robertson. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

7The grunt work I go through for you readers! I had the library send a copy of Robertson’s autobiography, Testimony, to my branch, and just went over to spend an hour searching through the danged thing—500 pages (with no index; always a bad sign). Robertson states the chorus actually came first, and he was thrilled with it. So now I just throw up my hands and look to heaven in beseeching exasperation, resting my case. Wow.

Section 3

To What End?

I’m patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it. — Edith Sitwell

Perhaps the point has been sufficiently made in the previous two sections—but let’s quickly dispense with a few more typical examples from the two equally inarticulate schools of practice in contemporary songwriting that we’ve exposed, before moving forward.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you some absolute crap—er, I mean ‘brilliantly imaginative writing’. I give you John Lennon’s “Come Together”:

Here come old flat top,
He come groovin’ up slowly.
He got joo joo eyeballs;
He one holy roller;
He got hair down to his knees—
Got to be a joker
He just do what he please.

He wear no shoeshine;
He got toe jam football;
He got monkey finger;
He shoot Coca Cola;
He say “I know you, you know me—
One thing I can tell you is
You got to be free!”

chorus:

Come together, right now,
Over me.

He bad production;
He got walrus gumboot;
He got Ono sideboard;
He one spinal cracker;
He got feet down below his knees8.......—

Okay, enough, enough.... I said ENOUGH ALREADY!

We certainly don’t need to go on here. Lennon himself grants, “The song was created in the studio. It’s gobbledygook”9. (Yes it sure as hell IS, John—but admitting to that doesn’t absolve you of responsibility for it....)

This utter travesty would make a fine ‘Exhibit A’ illustrating how bad things can get when an act knows It Can Get Away With Anything—and It Simply Does Not Care. It’s a, er, um—technique?—I call ‘refrigerator magnet songwriting’.

“Come Together” has an unusual overall sound to it, about that there should be little disagreement—and it’s a well-produced recording. A well-produced recording of—well, yes, “gobbledygook”. Like a great-looking classic automobile—without an engine or a steering wheel, sitting on four flat tires. (We’ll look at the differences between songwriting and production—picture and frame—later.)

One can think of so many of Lennon’s songs that were similarly concurrently both endowed and crippled. A fascinating one, for example—musically, I mean—is “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”, a great sounding composition, with an arrangement that’s stunningly unique and expertly, inventively produced. And plagued with lyrics that are preposterously self-indulgent and in-your-face stupid. (I’ll carefully separate lyrics from music—and both from production—in later sections as well. This may strike one as obvious and unnecessary, but it’s the failure to properly do so that licenses, enables—even allows unquestioning consecration of—so many dumbfoundingly trivial efforts.)

And there are multitudes of other extremely successful—read: well-known, covered by other acts and commercially lucrative, but ultimately banal—songs like “Come Together”. This, folks, is where exalting stream-of-consciousness idiocy and Dylanesque ‘Poetic Lyrics’ has gotten us—as abetted by the lethal combination of celebrity idol worship and celebrity self-entitlement, both of which I’ll also address here later. And keep in mind that John Lennon could be—could be, when he restrained and applied himself—a capable and occasionally even affecting songwriter. But “Come together, over me”? “Come together, over me”? Does a refrain of that repeated adage—or whatever exactly it is: A maxim? A motto? A rallying cry?—make any sense?....

- - -

On the other side of the coin, here’s one of a zillion available examples underscoring how depressed the bar is in the ‘Trying to Say Something Clear and Meaningful When Low on Talent’ department—this by the persistent but under-equipped John Mellencamp—and another song I’m sure you’ve endured far too many times:

Well I was born in a small town.
And I live in a small town.
Probably die in a small town.
Oh, those small communities.

All my friends are so small town.
My parents live in the same small town.
My job is so small town.
Provides little opportunity.

Educated in a small town.
Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town.
Used to daydream in that small town
Another romantic, that’s me.

But I’ve seen it all in a small town.
Had myself a ball in a small town.
Married an L.A. doll and brought her to this small town;
Now she’s small town just like me10.......—

Again, fine, okay, just—STOP! Please let’s not go on.

Utterly abysmal writing—competent, at most, on the level of a diligent grade schooler trying his or her best. But OH-so-self-important. This car isn’t even a classic automobile—it’s an empty parking spot. A waste of time. (And elaborating on that last observation, is the song really an extollation of the virtues of small towns and rural life—or of Mellencamp himself? I mean he gives no reasons small towns are great places, does he? But there’s a lot of him strutting and bragging about how supposedly downhome and authentic he is—though he also makes absolutely sure we know that he got himself the cliché big city Trophy Wife!)

- - -

How about one more piece of saccharine tripe before we move on—some rubbish from Bob Dylan. One could really never credibly put the words ‘Bob Dylan’ and ‘articulate’ in the same sentence—elegance, eloquence and economy are far beyond his abilities. But as we’ll look at some of his more spasmodically incoherent efforts later on, for now let’s briefly address a klutzy waddler from when he attempts to be plain spoken: the Hallmark Card called “Forever Young”. (Admittedly, that’s not a fair characterization: most Hallmark Cards are better written.)

May God bless and keep you always.
May your wishes all come true.
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.

May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung.
May you stay forever young.

chorus:

Forever young; forever young;
May you stay forever young!

May you grow up to be righteous.
May you grow up to be true.
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.

May you always be courageous;
Stand upright and be strong.
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy.
May your feet always be swift.
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift.

May your heart always be joyful.
May your song always be sung.
May you stay forever young.

No one can be ‘forever young’, Bob—you know that, yes? Your dopey benediction here—or whatever you want to call it—does nothing but wallow in bankrupt bathos. And it goes absolutely nowhere.

Yet to be clear, cheap sentiment is actually not, in itself, a definitive indictment—if there’s also something on offer; something new and larger to be gained elsewhere within the package.

You can delight in every present moment, Bob. You may try to guide and teach properly. You can recount your own tests and trials so a child might prepare and prevail when similarly challenged. You may simply long for the times past—if you, please, don’t just glory in your self-pity; and give us reason why this nostalgia is in fact expansive or ennobling. You may imagine the future man or woman in the face of the child. (And along the way, yes, you might hope the enthusiasm and innocence of youth can be maintained deep into majority. Just one, or a couple, lines of dead-end sentiment are surely not asking too much of us—as opposed to the grinding fucking ordeal of them you’ve piled up here.) And if you’d taken any of those routes—or maybe taken the lead of wistful, bemused but confident resignation summoned by Malvina Reynolds’ song, “Turn Around”—you might have come up with something worthy.

But, as noted, even what you’re doing here is still potentially okay, if you can bring some poetry, some well-written evocations, to surround and expand upon the banal and ultimately pointless line with which you otherwise unremittingly batter us into insensate apathy.

Here, however, we get the pedestrian tedium of mawkish platitudes—a relentless parade of somnabulant empty clichés—wedged between that banal title line that’s pounded over and over. Puffed up schmaltz. There’s no reflection on or celebration of present circumstance—the present situation Bob would like to see last forever. (It’s also rather sing-songy—not an attribute in a song that would like to be taken as a statement of earnestness and depth.)

By the way, if writing a song in which it’s necessary to rhyme ‘young’, one of the very few words available is ‘rung’—which naturally makes citing a ladder an easy and fitting choice of image, and climbing it an obvious metaphor for life. Great luck, this. And any songwriter would surely and happily head in the same general direction with it as did Dylan.

But is “and climb on every rung” the best you can do with that, Bob? I mean what else is someone going to do with a friggin’ ladder but climb it? That’s pretty much a given, dontcha think? How ’bout we replace your demonstrably feeble “and climb on every rung” with, say, “and gain purchase on each rung”, eh? (Or perhaps “find purchase...”.) The suggested replacement uses a far more interesting and evocative word, adding the connotative element of wishing a demonstrably certain and secure ascent, in place of your anemic place-holding mundanity. “And climb on every rung” says nothing. “Find purchase on each rung” is an entirely different matter. I haven’t given it a lot of thought—there may be even stronger ideas for that line and couplet. (The additional syllable in my suggestion isn’t a problem, as consistent meter isn’t obtained elsewhere in the song either.) I cringe at that truly hokey “ladder to the stars” pablum itself, but there’s not time here—nor inclination—to re-write the whole tepid concoction. Yet just about anything is better than Dylan’s trite and brain-dead “and climb on every rung”.

And it all just goes on and ON. “May your wishes all come true.” “May you always be courageous / Stand upright and be strong.” “May your heart always be joyful / may your song always be sung.” One gooey, cheeseball banality after another. Yuck.

Is anything said in this song that offers fresh insight? Is anything expressed with such eloquence that we’re surprised and delighted, even though the essential observation itself may understandably remain a commonplace? Do we learn one interesting notion, or enjoy just one thought expressed poetically—or even with entertaining novelty? In short, is there any reason to indulge this syrupy and laboriously thudding mediocrity?

Yes, surely Bob deeply feels the thoughts he’s clumsily trying to express here. No doubt. But listen up, please: sincerity is not depth. We’ll look more closely at that critical distinction later on, but for now let me just repeat it: Sincerity is not depth. Dylan may be profoundly sincere with “Forever Young”—so what and who cares?!?

It may be proposed, as it once was to me, that we might judge or receive “Forever Young” as one does a so-called “Irish Toast” or “Irish Blessing”: something gracefully avuncular and lighthearted, (and so somewhat inconsistent with the ponderousness of Dylan’s own performances of the song). Okay, fine.

But that doesn’t help at all.

The best known of those constructions, surely, is the one that goes “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.”12 There’s no question that even if this has a legitimate pedigree (and that’s doubtful) it is certainly a cliché—it’s been over-quoted, over-produced, over-exposed. It borders on kitsch. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually poorly written. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?...”) is also over-exposed—as is the Bible’s 23rd Psalm (“The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...”)—but few would deny they’re well written. This “Irish Blessing” may or may not be in that league, but it is unquestionably more resonant and poignant—much better written—than Dylan’s unctuous song. “Forever Young” is pure kitsch; insufferable drivel.

If so, you’re partly correct. Yes, it is like shooting fish in a barrel.

But ‘lesser efforts’ implies they’re secondary aberrations—and that they most certainly are not. Indeed, these are revered, exalted exemplars of what’s held to be the best in popular songwriting, written by ostensibly consistently brilliant ‘artists’. Just think about that for a moment. Because, indeed, were they generally recognized as either secondary efforts by competent writers or as the best work possible from marginally talented hacks—so in either case endured simply as filler material—the situation here would be significantly different.

So do we just continue to accept the tsunami of detritus deluging us daily—and must we resign ourselves to doing so because that’s simply what constitutes the overwhelming vast majority of efforts with which we’re provided?

I say we shouldn’t. I say we don’t.

8“Come Together”, copyright 1969 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

9All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff. (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000), 201

10“Small Town”, copyright 1985 by John Mellencamp. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

11“Forever Young”, copyright 1973 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

12It seems, by the way, that whether of older vintage or recent creation, the first line is actually a mis-translation of the Gaelic. A proper translation apparently renders the more prosaic but operative “May your journey be successful”.

Section 4

A Personal Remembrance

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. — St Paul, “First Epistle to the Corinthians”, King James Version Bible

When I was in my mid-teens, I performed—regularly, determinedly, earnestly performed—various songs by the Byrds, Beatles, Rolling Stones; “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and other songs by Bob Dylan; “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel; and whatever other purportedly serious and thoughtful efforts I and others like me were told at the time were ‘important’ and ‘meaningful’.

But frequently—almost always, actually—nagging at me was the feeling something was missing, something was off or even hollow in what I was singing and playing. I outwardly deferred to the judgments from on high that these were great anthems of progressive, even revolutionary, political, social, and musical importance. Yet why didn’t I really subscribe to that? Why did so much of it at heart seem to me to be jejune, self-indulgent navel-gazings on one end, and inarticulate and directionless rambles on the other?

Hell, the songs pervaded the entire culture. I could hear them on the radio several times a day, and a friend do his or her own version a couple of times that evening. In the face of such overwhelming and inescapable confirmation, my reservations and gut caveats were, I submissively accepted, surely just simple products of adolescent ignorance, no? I mean, clearly and a priori, they were all on ‘the right side’ of the severe and multiple great societal divides of the era—so who was I to question the merit of those songs, be they merely diverting confections or ostensibly substantive, even inspirational and mobilizing, anthems.

Reaching young adulthood in the oppressively provincial North Florida panhandle, I had to allow that I probably just wasn’t sophisticated enough, smart enough or cool enough to fully get it. After all, the Important National Media, the Record Industry, and Other Big Successful Acts all said Dylan’s songs, especially, were ‘brilliant’, ‘revolutionary’, ‘towering’—and he himself ‘The Voice of A Generation’, writing ‘true poetry’ and so on, and so on. Who was I to oppose all that?

(Bob Dylan’s deleterious influence on contemporary songwriting is so extensive—and so unchallenged, despite the work itself inconveniently being remarkably shallow and clumsy—that he and it will be frequently referenced and revisited throughout this piece. We’ll naturally focus directly on the songs—and on songs by others who’ve been influenced by him—at length. But unfortunate distractions along the way are that he’s also properly spotlighted in the section on plagiarism, and we’ll elsewhere shovel past the mountains of blind celebrity worship from his most obtusely rabid fans and eager disciples. While neither his personal and professional ethics nor the prostrate adulation of his adherents is of direct substance when discussing the work itself, those peripheral considerations are necessarily germane in any discussion of the conventionally imputed merit and impact of that work.)

Growing up there in Tallahassee, I was a particularly zealous fan of the Buffalo Springfield—a band whose members included Neil Young, Stephen Stills and others who’ve almost all subsequently continued on through successful music industry careers. And I was, believe me, Neil Young’s Number One Biggest Fan—to me he was a Great And Profound Artist, and could simply Do No Wrong.

And now?

Now I can barely stand to hear the guy—and roll my eyes at his generally banal and erratic songs, be they more recent ones or those very same efforts about which I rhapsodized so extravagantly Way Back When.

What happened to my enthusiasm for Neil?

Well, I got older, wiser—simply more exposed to and experienced in the world. I became more discerning, discriminating and demanding.

He didn’t.

This manifesto is specifically directed to those who’ve experienced comparable growth and accrued sapience; similarly willing to cast aside convention and cant.

Section 5

A Later Kick in the Pants

The continual dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content...it’s kind of a growing celebration of ignorance. — Carl Sagan

Many years following, a friend asked why he never heard me play songs by current songwriters. As I was then slowly preparing to record my next album, I replied that I wasn’t averse to learning recent songs, or even including a rendition of one on my coming album, but I hadn’t really been listening to much popular music at the time and so was pretty ignorant about what might currently be a good fit.

No, I didn’t intentionally avoid what was popular. Hell, over the years, I’d enjoyed hearing the occasional specific song by mainstream commercial pop acts like the Beach Boys, Ramones, Four Tops, Eminem, Lefty Frizzell, Chet Baker, the Who, Snoop Dogg, Celine Dion, Lovin’ Spoonful, Norah Jones, Garth Brooks, the Go-Gos, and others—an almost schizophrenically eclectic assortment I here realize—even the occasional Broadway show tune and French chanson. As we’ll note in a later section, that a song may be light-minded is not necessarily an indictment, nor an indictment of those who enjoy it. There should always be room for divertissements and escape. The common critical error with such material, though, is thinking them more than merely enjoyable trifles. And the fatal error is glorifying them as Great Art.

But it might be fun to work up something similarly light and mainstream—and current—to record. Hell why not? (This was a little after Johnny Cash garnered renewed attention by recording Trent Reznor’s song for Nine Inch Nails, “Hurt”. I wasn’t an admirer of the recording or the song—and the match struck me, really, as a kinda cheap gimmick. But the basic idea of doing something outside the expected, if it can be made to work, is one that always appeals to me.)

The following morning my friend walked in with a present: two CDs he’d burned for me the night before. One was a compendium of about 20 songs by different current acts he thought were doing the best songwriting at the time. The other was devoted entirely to songs written and performed by Beck. So the next evening, driving a rental car from LA to San Francisco, I studiously listened to them both several times, hoping to hear something that might arouse my interest and enthusiasm.

As with so much in popular music, and even when I turned the treble up and the bass down, it was hard to understand the lyrics to a lot of what was sung.

Strictly as melodies, however, one song of the 35 or 40 got my attention—a song by Beck Hansen, though here again it was hard to get the lyrics despite repeated plays. But I became enthused about the possibility of working it up and possibly recording it, as I quickly thought I could do a solid job with the music on guitar. If the lyrics worked, or could be made to work with a little tweaking, then maybe this’d be a good song to include on the album. Hey, great!

When I got home to San Francisco, I checked the mail, returned a couple of calls, showered and changed, poured a glass of wine, sat down and slipped the CD into the computer while finding the lyrics on the internet to follow along.

And?

Well, it should have been expected, really. I’ve been around for a while.

Unfortunately, the writing was just more refrigerator magnet songwriting. Pretentious, incoherent rubbish. A waste of any listener’s intelligence and time.

And no, I didn’t feel superior. I just felt disappointed.

Section 6

Toward a New American Songwriting

In a time of universal self-deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. — George Orwell

In 1798, a book of poems titled Lyrical Ballads, by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was first published. For the second edition, three years later, Wordsworth inserted a long and sweeping Preface—in which he attempted to point out and emphasize the importance of the foundational thinking that had premised the book. (The basic thrust of the Preface, as was intended to be exemplified in the poems themselves, was to move poetry towards a more vernacular language, a revolutionary leap away from the elegant and ornate writing styles dominant at the time.) He even fully recognized the imposing and lengthy Preface might be seen as crass sales craft—as simply an attempt to garner favorable reactions to the poems independent of their intrinsic quality. Yet the urgency of what he had to say about poetry in general was so important, he felt, that a full presentation of those views was incumbent upon him, and necessary to advance the entire art....

In 1954, in the pages of the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, then critic (and, of course, within a few years internationally renowned director) François Truffaut wrote what became recognized as the seminal call to arms for the nascent Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) in French cinema. In a critical manifesto titled “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français” (“A Certain Tendency in French Cinema”) he documented and excoriated the ossified so-called ‘Tradition of Quality’ then ascendant in French filmmaking. His central thesis was germinal in the development of the auteur theory, in which the director—the director who had both talent and the force to maintain a consistent worldview throughout his or her works—was asserted to be the most important creative participant in filmmaking. The director was, more than the screenwriter, producer or actors, the true ‘auteur’—author—of a film. Movies and film criticism in France—and eventually around the world—were never again the same.

Two centuries after Wordsworth and sixty-plus years following Truffaut, I take inspiration from both efforts, and similar revolutionary artistic manifestos, to examine here the recent and current state of American popular songwriting (and attendant non-American Anglophone songwriting generally) and the two complementary but equally wrong-headed directions found in general practice: simplistic and directionless lyric writing on the one hand (e.g.,“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, “Small Town”, “Forever Young”), and so-called ‘Poetic Lyrics’—poorly-crafted and inarticulate babble, as epitomized in the majority of songs by Bob Dylan, certainly, which have been held in highest critical and often popular esteem in recent decades—on the other (e.g.,“American Pie”, “Come Together”). I’ll offer some thought on why they may actually be two sides of the same coin—why they possibly derive from the very same cultural impulse. And I’ll propose some guiding principles and practices that might help lead American songwriting to more resonance and significance.

I hope you’ll enter this as one might begin an informal inquisitive dinner dialogue with intelligent friends, or a thoughtful afternoon conversation with a trusted pal over coffee or a couple of beers at a neighborhood hangout—meaning we’re gonna jump around, explore tangents, tell a few amusing stories, speculate, offer examples both positive and negative, analyze, digress, and back-track whenever it may be warranted or productive—along the way to some generally hard and fast conclusions. I expect both the general reader and other practicing songwriters and musicians may find many observations and insights helpful, and occasionally even instructive. I hope so, in any event.

By the way—a stylistic note: Throughout this manifesto, when song lyrics are directly quoted, they’ll appear in a way that certainly isn’t unique, but is admittedly unusual: with periods, question marks, exclamation points, commas, semi-colons, colons, dashes, parentheses, brackets and quotation marks as I decide they fit and best help define and convey the thoughts intended in those lyrics. Versions of those songs will be, as best as I can determine, as they are performed by the original writer(s), with respect to exact lyrics and placements of verses, chorus, bridge, etc. (If a major hit recording of the song is how it’s best known—and that version differs from the presumed original—the revised presentation may be the way the song is subsequently performed by the original writer[s] as well; meaning they’ve adjusted it to mirror the hit rendition. Yet I’ve tried to track down the earliest finished constructions when possible, with some note of significant later emendations when of interest.)

And in the effort to find shared familiarity in the material considered, most of the songs examined—like those addressed above—will be works that have been around for a while: songs the vast majority of which will be known by most readers, with only the occasional more recent example or obscure title.

As a writer and guitar player myself, I may offer an occasional minor example from my own work in passing, as a positive or even as a negative example. (If you wanna hear someone Really Beat the Living Hell Out of Himself, though, sit me down and ask me to critique my own songs—I can go on and On and ON about things I think ill-conceived, unmusical, misleading, untenable, inarticulate, confused, poorly concocted or executed, or just plain flat-out fuckin’ dumb. I’m a much, much tougher critic of my own stuff than you or anyone else could ever be, believe me. Yet I hope I’m also perceptive enough to recognize when something of mine may have merit.)

Finally, I wish to acknowledge and thank the many people who’ve helped me through the years to ponder through and arrive at the formulations herein—I’m one who tends to do his best thinking when bouncing ideas and notions back and forth with someone else, someone for whom I have respect and whose intelligence and insight I find particularly acute. So I’m in profound debt to Garrett Soden, Michael Varhol, Uri Hertz and Tré Giles (Los Angeles), Rebecca Chalker and Richard Leslie (New York City), Frank Lindamood and Karen Graffius-Ashcraft (Tallahassee), Steve Arwood (Nashville), Lynne Magin (Chicago), Karl Fredrik Lundeberg (Washington), Michael Robertson and Ken Bullock (San Francisco), Tom McFarland (Merritt Island), and Dan Simberloff (Knoxville). Most of these poor people endured some long (and I’m sure often disruptive) phone discussions and/or email exchanges over the years on ideas that are gathered in this manifesto; though I must emphasize that none of them agree with everything here. And some may disagree with just about all of it. So don’t hold anyone but me accountable for factual errors as you may find them, or culpable for critical or intellectual lapses as you may judge them to exist. And I sincerely thank each of the folks above for their time, their forbearance, their taste and their intelligence.

- - -

But before we even get into critical specifics of songwriting at all, I think we should identify and dispatch as much of the accumulated sludge and encrustations that surround and suffocate the topic. Of all fields of entertainment and the performing arts, popular song is perhaps the most larded with extraneous nonsense—from imbecilic posturing and ludicrous marketing of acts themselves to pandemic insufferable fan worship. Inanity ascendant. One of course finds crass preening, cynical pretense, and vapid idolatry everywhere in the performing and fine arts—hell, one finds it to greater or lesser extent in every human endeavor—but probably nowhere is the cancer so metastasized as in popular song.

So first—and, admittedly, a long first it’s gonna be—let’s look at several quagmires, snares, and dissimulations we’ll try to avoid on our journey. Popular music, so ubiquitous and available, is rarely examined coldly—and the common human desire for heroes, villains, authority and vicarious nobility is so determined—that it’s a field rife with breathlessly delivered superficial appreciations. I’m going to take a patient tour d’horizon of many inconsequential manifestations that regularly preclude or undermine what might otherwise become serious discussions of popular song. While many things I’ll address—perhaps most—are surely obvious to many, I think it’s important to expose and dismiss them deliberately, progressively, decisively, one by one by one.

(If you don’t wish to take time to revisit what should be the indisputable foundations for a discussion of this sort—and find an attempt at such to be tedious or even condescending—please accept my apologies and skip on to Part Two or even Part Three. But, with sincere respect to my readers, even a quick scan of the immediate sections below may still be helpful. We’re in somewhat uncharted critical waters, after all, and so getting initial bearings. Thank you.)

PART ONE: Distractions, Diversions, Deceptions

— CLEARING AWAY MOUNTAINS OF CRAP —

Section 7

Ground Rule #1

When not applied strictly to painters, ‘artist’ has a pretentious sound to it.13 — Steven Moore

I agree with Mr Moore, above. The term ‘artist’ is elitist and exclusionary, and should be avoided, even in casual discussion. I’ll here consciously try to use the terms ‘songwriter’, ‘lyricist’, ‘composer’, ‘performer’—even the rather clinically cheeky ‘practitioner’—and similar.

The characterization of someone as an artist is an easy handle, of course, but it also abets legitimization of a lot of impertinent and pernicious nonsense. In everyday conversation, we so often use the word as a superlative descriptor: “The guy’s not just your regular plumber, he’s a real artist!” or “She’s not a simple gardener, she’s an artist!” The two people are lifted above their peers into an exalted realm, ‘above the riff-raff’, when all that’s actually intended is to compliment the person in question for doing generally capable or even excellent work in his or her field—he does excellent plumbing, she grows some great vegetables. Good for them both, and good for us who benefit from their work.

But artist is indeed a very loaded term, conferring an almost blanket license and excuse for grandiosity and outré self-indulgence—as if someone who has admirably mastered singing in public, for instance, is deserving of specially preferential and indulgent treatment; as though we should almost expect, and certainly applaud and reward, diva behavior. It allows—sanctifies—excess, because (again) they’re NOT just like you and me, they’re lovably crazy, unpredictable ARTISTS. Calling someone working in entertainment (and the so-called performing arts—which is, with similar pretense, really just high-brow entertainment, albeit stationed elsewhere on the cultural continuum, no?14) an ‘artist’ is an insidious elevation. It contributes mightily to the tawdry celebrity culture so prevalent in contemporary society—and hallows a whole lot of second-rate work.

Songwriting can be an art; it is most often carefully considered and crafted work. Inspiration really is ninety-nine percent perspiration. And creating a song is, in the end, organized and thoughtful problem-solving to reach a desired result, though the solving of the schematic and thematic obstacles—owing to the technical exigencies of the task at hand—can often severely alter what had been initially presumed to be that ultimate objective, that ultimate message. Yet whether intended from scratch, or arrived at serendipitously, if an over-arching and insightful vision is achieved, then the work may even be properly lauded as a work of art. The effort to get there, however, isn’t glamorous. It’s a complicated and demanding job.

Similar to rejecting the inadvertent or deliberate aggrandizement perpetrated by casually throwing around the word artist and the expanded importance it bestows, I recall writer Garrison Keillor intoning in his commanding baritone to comparable end some years back—I’m paraphrasing from memory here—“Writing is a great and noble calling!” (long pause) “Writing is a great and noble calling!...But so is dentistry. And so is nursing. And so is road repairing.”

Yes.

We do ourselves and songwriting a disservice when we call those working in the field—including singers, instrumentalists, and producers—artists. We cheat listeners and actually demean the hard work of songwriters when we mystify the complicated process of writing and composing a successful song.

14We’ll briefly look at the ostensible differentiation between “popular art” and “high art” in a later section.

Section 8

I’m Your Biggest Fan! You’re My Hero!

Only fools have the habit of believing everything written by a famous author is admirable. — François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

The Number One Single Biggest Malignancy that enables the vapidity, superficiality, and posturing incoherence so pervasive in contemporary songwriting (and performance) is fan idolatry. Over-the-top adulation. Celebrity ass-kissing. Hero worship. And as we’ll address later, that kind of insipid awe-struck reverence—eager, willful ignorance, really—is found just as often among academics and critics who one should reasonably expect to be past such embarrassing displays. But it’s infected just about every part of American society, and popular music is obviously not immune to it. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that’s where it’s at its stomach-turning worst. This is not the place to psycho-analyze the popular desperation that finds satisfaction investing stars with veritable supernatural authority, but it is appropriate to expose it as the profoundly detrimental, even outright destructive, practice that it is.

It’s a common thing to hear “I’m a Beatles fan”—or a Katy Perry, Bing Crosby, Kanye West, Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Supremes, Bill Monroe, or Whoever-the-Hell-ELSE fan. But if that enthusiasm, as it easily can, prevents or significantly colors otherwise intelligent appreciation—particularly precluding ready dismissal of inferior (or even downright incompetent) works by that practitioner when warranted—there’s no clear benefit in hearing your judgments on the act’s efforts. You have no legitimacy as a critic or auditor if you’re predisposed to liking blindly (or, far more perniciously, manufacturing or advancing doubtful justifications for) everything this or that act puts forth. Such opinions are obviously bereft of discernment. You’re a fan—a mechanical, unthinking consumer.

Over the years, I myself have very much enjoyed a lot of what I’ve heard by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos—friends might understandably call me a “Buck Owens fan”.15 Yet I’m well aware he also wrote some really—and yes, I mean really—embarrassingly bad stuff, along with the good and the truly great. I give you the A-side of a 1967 single, a song of his called “Where Does the Good Times Go?”:

Where does the good times go?
Where does the river flow?
Where does the north wind blow?
Where does the good times go?16

This is Plain Bad, on just about every possible level. Anyone disagree?

And the really sad news here—as it was with the “American Pie” lyrics quoted earlier—is that this is the chorus. So it’s heard three times in the just over two minutes of the recording. YEOW!

I’ve also immensely enjoyed recordings and live concerts by the Clash back in the day—I still think their first-ever US concert, at Temple Beautiful in San Francisco, ranks as the most electrifying rock performance I’ve ever attended. And I continue to find their work engaging these many years later. But it’s quite unlikely you’ll ever hear me lecturing someone on how uniformly great their writing or composing ostensibly is, or find me performing one of their songs.

Look, we all have our individual enthusiasms and personal preferences; as we all have our guilty pleasures and transient fancies. And with a little study we can ferret out legitimate factual evidence to serve an illegitimate prefabricated notion—that they’re just so gosh-darn innovative and creatively brilliant. And even if we can’t find it—and whether some actually exists or not—we can make it up. Such is the mental agility and application that is fundamental to everything from brilliant doctoral dissertations to hare-brained conspiracy theories.

And we’ve also all been buffaloed in the supermarket check-out line—our curiosity morbidly ensnared, and our eventual embarrassing continued attention garnered—by this or that bit of tabloid weirdness perpetrated by this or that act; for whatever reason extraneous, or even integral, to the actual material created by the act.

Divorce yourself as much as possible from all that, please. We’re here to evenly examine the work itself.

So while I will here regularly use the facile agency of a practitioner’s name as an easy way into a general discussion of his or her work—standing in for all the collective actual work done by that practitioner—it’s something else that should be only carefully invoked in serious discussion. While not all of Ernest Hemingway’s stories were masterworks, and not even close to all songs by the Beatles were brilliant; yet we calmly speak of loving Hemingway, or the Beatles—or Rembrandt van Rijn, Eero Saarinen, the Rolling Stones, Louise Nevelson, Bill Hicks, Tupac Shakur, or Whomever. Not a single one of them created only masterpieces. So careful with the praise; too much of it and you’ve become that unthinking fan, and an intellectual cripple. There’s a profound connotative difference between the words ‘customer’ and ‘consumer’—I’m urging us all here to be the former. Fans are largely the latter.

And on the other side of the coin, there will occasionally arrive a piece of work from a second-rate act and second-rate songwriters that rises far above their usual uninspired efforts. And it’s imperative, here as well, to divorce oneself from prejudices about the source and to consider the material itself. Later, as much as I admit it pains me to do so, I’ll favorably note the significant accomplishment in an extremely well-known song by the Eagles, an act I utterly detest on just about every level as the apotheosis—better, nadir—of insufferable mediocrity and swaggering commercial banality. But the song in question merits appreciation, and such it shall be properly accorded.

Elsewhere, when discussing the musical side of songwriting, I’ll similarly and I hope fairly recognize the melodic gifts of composers whose public personas, in apparent but absolutely immaterial contradistinction, may even radiate plain doltishness; in acts I think thoroughly celebrate mindless vapidity.

One does well to remember the lesson so brilliantly imparted by Peter Shaffer in his play, Amadeus, and in his subsequent screenplay for the film version, directed by Milos Foreman. But it’s one we all instinctively already know. The world isn’t patently guaranteed, all black and all white, every actor easily pigeonholed; intelligence, morality, and various talents distributed to any individual or throughout society in equal or predictable measures.

So we’ll close this section by repeating the very first sentence in it, to emphasize its profound importance: The Number One Single Biggest Malignancy that enables the vapidity, superficiality, and posturing incoherence so pervasive in contemporary songwriting and performance is fan idolatry.

15I produced Buck’s first two concerts after Dwight Yoakam coaxed him out of retirement many years back. “Michael Koppy presents Buck Owens and the Buckaroos”, in Sacramento and San Francisco: both SRO, hundreds turned away. Buck, his manager and I got along famously, and it was one of the most rewarding projects I’ve ever taken on. (The shows also got me on heavyweight promoter Bill Graham’s radar, by the way—not necessarily a good thing! But that’s a story for another essay one day.) I mention the association not to name-drop but to underscore that my critique of “Where Does the Good Times Go” is not a result of personal animosities or pique—we really are here to discuss the work itself, divorced of subjective prejudices or preferences.

16“Where Does the Good Times Go”, copyright 1967 by Buck Owens. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 9

Herds of Rampaging Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Veldt!

Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong! — Title of a 1958 record album

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. — Anatole France, 1880

Similar to blanket idolatry is the argumentum ad populum ‘proof’ that this or that song—or this or that act—is unquestionably wonderful because it’s just so dang popular and commercially successful. Everyone goes to the concerts; the act is pulling in zillions of bucks each week; the songs are all high on the charts!

As I’ve written elsewhere before, there’s also no doubt McDonald’s hawks the most hamburgers and Proctor & Gamble sells the most toilet paper.

So what?

That Buck Owens song, “Where Does the Good Times Go?”, mentioned in the previous section? Well, it was the Number One Song on the Billboard Magazine sales charts for four straight weeks, and sold millions of copies. And? Does that mean it is well-written, insightful, and substantive after all? Of course not. Or that it’s unambitiously pleasant and infectiously painless? Well, maybe—I guess, to some extent, for whatever that’s worth. But it was primarily just product—product quickly marketed to pull in as much money as possible while the act was the biggest draw in country music, at the zenith of its popularity. And bad product—embarrassingly bad product.

Countless many writers, composers, and performers who (and songs that) were wildly popular in past eras and decades have been completely forgotten by history—mention of their names today draws only uncomprehending stares. The same will come to pass for 99.99% of the exceptionally popular practitioners and their efforts of today. Hell, the vast majority will be forgotten by next week, as the tightly packed herds of au courant taste-makers and conformist fans dash madly en masse, first this way and then that in desperate, panicked search for the next serving of perfect pablum.

For so many reasons, popularity is an extremely feeble metric to invoke in any assessment of artistic merit.

Any of us who are worth anything spend our adulthood in unlearning the follies and expiating the mistakes of our youth. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

In everyone’s life—and especially during stages of adolescence and early adulthood—there’s a soundtrack of popular songs associated with specific events and people: a love affair, a memorable afternoon or evening, a political awakening, an unfortunate incident, etc. The songs become emotionally invested with far more personal involvement than any musical or lyrical appreciation of intrinsic application or merit might legitimately warrant. We are partial and attached to the entire milieu with which we associate the song; it has become inextricable from and wholly emblematic of the memory, whatever that memory may be. Critical detachment is obviated and a warm feeling of self-absorbed engagement and satisfaction is provided.

No news here.

Peeing one’s pants also provides a warm feeling all over—but it additionally rids the body of material that has been depleted of all nourishment.

Nostalgia simply bathes and revels in the unleashed warmth.

You gloried in this or that song when you were newly investigating the world, in love and 18 years old. Fine. That doesn’t mean it’s good work. It might be, but it most probably isn’t. Got it?

It’s easy to kid yourself about how clever a lot of second-rate stuff is...Bullshit is the true American soundtrack. — George Carlin

As observed earlier, we also all indulge in guilty pleasures—work that provides not even an emotional connection to particular life events, and that we candidly know to be patently inferior, but that we still find amusing, soothing, welcomely unchallenging or similar. (Quite often it’s simply stuff with which we’ve been assaulted so many times that it has become familiar—and therefore unthreatening, safe.) One might just plain Have A Soft Spot for an “American Pie” or “Small Town” or whatever, fully aware they ain’t really great art. Fair enough. My own list of guilty pleasures in popular music might be said to include recordings by Gene Autry, the Yardbirds, Ricky Nelson, the Doors, Ernest Tubb, the Cars, the Buzzcocks, and others more recent. The songwriting is almost invariably simple journeyman concoctions—nothing more was considered or even likely—as are the performances. So while I personally find it occasionally comfortable—and may even myself sometimes perform one or more of the songs I first heard by these performers—I wouldn’t for a moment presume to champion many of the songs as more than pleasant trifles, light filler. I hope you will recognize your own such diversions, and affectionately dispatch them as well.

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Garbage is always. We will die, civilization will crumble, life as we know it will cease to exist, but trash will recur and endure. — Robin Nagle

And then there’s the Daily Dreck—from a galumphing army of disposable acts incapable of more than the most transient postures and hackneyed trivialities; unequipped at displaying even a remote indication they might be other than subcontractors in the cynical marketing department of a major industrial polluter; belting out the innocuous, insidious and generally histrionic detritus that clogs radio, shopping malls, web channels, movies and television. The less time spent here, the better.

One can try to intimate substance, artistry, and depth—and convince oneself it’s truly there—but crap is crap. Having a weakness for this or that expression of it is all too human—and while properly embarrassing, is grudgingly harmless so long as one doesn’t flounder in it to the exclusion of works of actual value, or insecurely defend that vulnerability to it by going on to waste time imputing substance that doesn’t exist and asserting stature that doesn’t obtain.

Section 12

See You at the Grammys!—A Note on Industrial Smarm Festivals

These things are fiascos. It’s just idiots all taking themselves far too seriously. — John Lydon

This section is directed as much, probably even more, to my fellow practitioners as it is to general readers, because it’s people who work in entertainment who are really the biggest advocates and suckers for the repulsively low-rent buffoonery of awards.

While I’ve never read anything divulging Woody Allen’s reasons for not participating in the Oscars, I expect his thinking on such events may parallel mine. I know when I’ve done good work; I know when I’ve done lesser or even bad work—and admit it, you do (or should) as well. It’s certainly affirming to receive praise for one’s efforts—even necessary to some social extent. But I don’t require—or want—confirmation of any of it in the form of some tawdry award, or lack thereof, from my purported peers, ostensible fans or public vote. Yes, such things can be viewed as ‘all part of the game’—ways to help sell more merchandise—but is the game, really, simply to move product? If it is, then deck yourself out in a ‘meat dress’, wear modified motorcycle helmets and claim you’re robots from outer space, have someone else (someone more technically capable) write and sing and play the instruments for you, put on diva airs and the most revealing attire you can; and have at it.

Though all such affectations and deceits are obviously peripheral to the actual act of writing, composing and performing—and so have no direct effect on the quality of the work (and can perhaps therefore be defended as ‘harmless fun’ or similar)—involvement in such industrial smarminess in fact rubs off; one becomes what one has beheld. One perforce buys into prevailing enthusiasms and celebrity, competes with it—and slowly becomes champion of, and commodity in, the basest of swap meets.

Some years ago, I wrote to a major pop music critic, chastising him for an incompetently blind article. His indignant response closed with what he clearly thought was the perfect put-down, the ultimate kiss-off: “See you at the Grammys!” he scoffed. When I read the line, alone in my office, I burst into an audible laugh. But I honestly felt a little sorry for the poor guy as well. The Grammys clearly meant something truly conclusive to him; having one was presumably the ultimate sine qua non of creative substantiation and legitimacy, and not being part of that scene at all a defining damnation. Without the Grammys, however would we know what’s good?

Personally, I’ve never even watched more than a short stretch of a Grammys telecast—or a Tonys, Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, MTV Whichevers, People’s Whatevers, Kennedy or AFI Whoevers—and would never, under any circumstances whatsoever, participate in person in such an embarrassingly shallow and oleaginous industrial circle-jerk17.

The entertainment industry has pretty much the same percentage of folks in it who are plain hacks as does any other line of work—meaning the vast majority generally do what’s reasonably expected, with not many readily capable of much beyond that. And while I’m an admittedly very demanding critic, very few of my so-called peers ever actually do something for which I really have honest unqualified admiration. It does occur, most certainly, and when I encounter it I’m loudly effusive with my recognition and praise, believe me. But it’s rare. And so for me to even accept the vast majority of hacks as peers is to effectively denigrate my own efforts. There are some opinions I very deferentially consider—but placing any value on what the mass of the industry thinks is simply an abrogation of responsibility, a cry of desperate high-schoolish insecurity.

For an award to be welcomed as authoritative confirmation that this year one has done masterful work equally requires implicitly accepting that not being handed an award next time around means one’s work wasn’t so good that year—when in fact the actual creative accomplishment may be far more significant. Again, you should know when you’ve done the best you can, when you may have found, through diligence and application (and occasionally actual inspiration), an innovative idea or presentation; and when you’ve successfully or unsuccessfully completed the work within the availabilities, limitations and exigencies present. Doesn’t a patronizing pat on the head and a pot metal paperweight actually kinda cheapen the efforts?

I strongly expect that in a hundred years or so, our current societal fascination with asinine awards and awards show spectacles will be seen as a laughable illustration of the vapidity and hubris of our time. Awards and awards participation are not worth nothing; they’re worth less than nothing. This goes for those considered more high-brow as well: Pulitzers, MacArthurs, Nobels—does anyone honestly think a war criminal like Henry Kissinger or the unctuous and deplorable Mother Teresa deserved Nobel Peace Prizes? Or that Barak Obama properly merited the same award—just a few months after becoming president, having at that point actually achieved virtually nothing of international consequence? Laughably, the Nobel nominations closed only 11 days after he took office! (In Obama’s case, obviously, his greatest accomplishment at the time, to the Nobel folks, was in merely not being his mentally-impaired predecessor, George W. Bush. While that’s most certainly an entirely admirable quality—and Mr Obama is clearly brilliant and an apparently wonderful human being—you and I ain’t Bush either, and we didn’t even make the short list.)18

Do not take or cite the fulsome flummery of awards and industry accolades as anything other than transient celebrity ephemera, devoid of merit. I repeat, awards are not worth nothing; they’re worth less than nothing. No one should care how many Grammys or other statues an act has been handed—while not definitively exclusionary to having created great work, it is on balance more indictment than accomplishment; a diversion from the purported intrinsic merit in the work itself. Awards have absolutely nothing to do with art and craft. Ignore them.

In my own experience, I’ve learned from working and dealing with ‘award winners’ on occasion that it actually requires more care and studious circumspection—not only to challenge ‘rest on one’s laurels’ complacency but to try to ascertain if there is, or ever was, much real talent there in the first place.

Enough said; moving on....

17Many years ago, relatively new to the Entertainment Industry in The Big City, I was handed an award, for “Best Show”—or maybe “Best Overall Production”, I can’t recall—but it was spoken of as ‘the biggie’ at some critics’ affair in San Francisco. (This despite that I was the only producer and director in Northern California who as a matter of policy never gave out a single free press pass—every single critic attending one of my shows came in holding a full price, paid-for ticket. The principled reasons for why and how I successfully engineered that policy is another story for another essay one day.) Someone phoned to report my show had been selected, so I went to the event—held in a packed 1,400 seat theater—said a few words, and left shortly after. Really, it was a waste of time—and the plaque itself tossed into a dumpster on the walk back home. Who needs that stuff?

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. — Hunter S. Thompson

A primary point I’m trying to make throughout these opening sections is that one place to not seek to find heroes and demigods is in the entertainment industry—popular music in particular, and songwriting as a specific handicraft and livelihood within it. The transience and essential insignificance of so much of the work, the capricious permutations of luck, and the potentially vast amounts of money to be gained all conspire to generally boot higher aspiration and principle from the field. (There’s an old saying: “The three places you can make a lot of money quickly are the stock market, crime, and entertainment”.) It’s actually common knowledge to even the general public—and despite the robust romanticization bestowed on practitioners (‘artists’, see above) by that general public—that entertainment, and again, especially popular music, is a demimonde rife with hucksters, incompetents, parasites, cheats, sleazeballs and corporate accountants. Those many who’re not fully compromised by the incessant debasements and ethical assaults—and even those wholly impervious to them—must all still navigate around them regularly.

So while Elvis Presley’s manager, Tom Parker, famously told associates—only a couple of hours after Presley’s death—“This changes nothing!”, performers (and songwriters) can themselves be just as much or even more cynical, calculating and avaricious. The tremendous odds against ‘making it big’, the stifling competition to be the one who hits the jackpot (and then keeps on hitting it), and the jealousy of those others who have actually scored big time financially and critically, altogether severely dampen much if not most of any initial innocence and altruism a novitiate may have once had.

Songwriting, like any other pursuit in entertainment, is ultimately just a job—an enterprise. An enterprise with specific tasks to be tackled step by step, objective by objective, obstacle by obstacle. One that can pay big financial and other dividends if fortune responds—but that response is bestowed with only little reference to talent or application.

All too often, a songwriting credit (and most substantively, remuneration) is taken by someone—a manager, a star performer, a producer—who had absolutely nothing at all to do with the writing or composing of a song. Sometimes, more artfully, the credit is properly proclaimed—but the financial stipulations contractually required of the writer(s) and composer(s) in order to have the song recorded do the same damage. And sometimes, as we’ll note later, a song is just plain outright stolen. It’s all just part of the low-rent power politics of the music business.

And though brilliant architecture—designed or serendipitously stumbled upon—is indeed most often a significant part of what makes a great song great, the day-to-day challenge is more down-in-the-dirt engineering (and, business-wise, simple self-protection!) than receiving divine architectural intervention and concomitant proper recompense. And on the other end, a lousy song, well-promoted, can make a career.

I hope that with just the couple more sections following below we may have properly punctured and deflated all or at least most of the romantic illusions, obsessive exaltations and impertinent prejudices found when addressing popular music, so that we may begin to tighten focus in on the actual work of songwriting itself. Bear with me....

Section 14

Dunno Much ’Bout Art, But I Know What I Like!

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity. — Napoleon Bonaparte

In most of these introductory sections, I’ve attempted to place some limits on unsupported enthusiasms. Here I wish to open up the other side, to expand appreciations—and knock off some negative predispositions.

Really? Reminds me of a proclamation I hear all the time from people about a certain kind of television program—and perhaps you’ve said it yourself—“I hate sitcoms!”

My response? “It’s not the form of the piece, it’s the execution. You’re allowing your understandable habitual disappointment with what you’ve been presented to make you incorrectly dismiss what is simply a theatrical framework.”

Don’t believe me? Okay, let’s play a little game. I’ll name you a bunch of live four-camera sitcoms from the past many years—no animation (Family Guy, The Simpsons, etc), no single-camera show (M*A*S*H*, The Office, etc). There’s no doubt whatsoever that we’ll disagree on which ones we think were ‘good’ and which ones were ‘bad’, but I have absolute confidence you’ll agree that some of these shows were indeed well-done, first-rate work. You actually enjoyed—admired—this one and that one. Ready?

Some from the UK, some from the US, in alphabetical order: All in the Family, The Andy Griffith Show, Blackadder, Cheers, Community, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Fawlty Towers, Frasier, Friends, Gilligan’s Island, The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mork and Mindy, Northern Exposure, Parks and Recreation, Roseanne, Seinfeld, Will and Grace, Yes Minister.

No, I didn’t say they were all great. (To me personally some of these are just plain awful.) But as with me, I guarantee that you also didn’t hate every one of them; because the ones you liked were, well—and I’m quoting YOU here—“the exceptions”.

Yes, they were indeed. And so it turns out you don’t actually dislike sitcoms. Sure, personal tastes differ—especially when it comes to what we each find funny. Humor is perhaps the ultimate reflection of idiosyncrasy. But what you really dislike is incompetent work and stupidity—not situation comedy as a genre. And you are right that ‘incompetent work’ and ‘stupidity’ are terms that most certainly and accurately describe the overwhelming vast majority of sitcoms. But it’s really the execution that was insufferable, not the format.

The same self-awareness and openness should hold for genres of popular song. Yes, most of all the stuff in (country, cabaret, bluegrass, heavy metal, R&B, fill-in-genre-here) is complete garbage. But it’s not the form—the style—it’s the execution. And that even goes for styles in which the presentation—death metal, anyone? opera?—seems to be, or even actually is, determined to be as off-putting as possible to all but an intended narrow fan base.

Good work—incisive, entertaining, relevant, well-crafted work—can be done in just about any format by a talented songwriter who applies himself or herself. It’s not the style that matters, it’s the work that is achieved in the style. After all and for example, the well-known singing cowboy song, “Don’t Fence Me In”—the kind of thing one might reasonably expect to have been churned out of early Nashville or even be a traditional folk song—was actually written by that ultimate urbane sophisticate, Cole Porter. And I bet if he’d wanted he could have written and composed a great song in any genre.

Section 15

Ever Notice the Worst Writing in an Insightful Pop Music Review—Even a Rave—Usually Shows Up When the Critic Quotes the Band’s Lyrics?

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. — Martin Mull

A quick digression to begin this section: There’s very little actual music discussed in a review or other article on popular music or musicians that is directed to a general readership. And that’s understandable, of course, insofar as even the rare musically knowledgeable critic faces the brick wall of an overwhelmingly musically illiterate readership. Less than 2% of the population can read music at even a rudimentary level, and the percentage that understands even a loose general lexicon of musical terms and their audio effect is still very small. So our hypothetical musically conversant critic is largely precluded from entering into a full critique of the actual music in question. What’s left for him or her to comment upon and fill out the article is the act’s lyrics, the record production, and—most easily mined for presumably factual material by the critic but of least significance—the biography, posturing and industrial marketing of the act. This can perhaps then extend on to the critic’s posited cultural antecedents or impact of the act being examined. It’s a challenge not to waiver off the track into press agentry on one side, and speculative cultural fantasy on the other. Neither is popular song criticism.

(And don’t get me started on those ubiquitous ‘Best Songs of All Time’ lists passed off as informative and definitive reportage. Anyone can make up a ‘One Hundred Best’—or Five Hundred Best—list, but we don’t presume to try to sell them to people from magazine racks. Rolling Stone, in particular, seems to never stop finding things to um, er, ‘authoritatively’ list: One Hundred Greatest Songs! Five Hundred Greatest! Greatest Guitarists! Performances! Singers! Albums!—hell, Rock Star Bean Dip Recipes! for all I know [or care]. If a publication or web site gets into relentlessly compiling ‘best of’ lists, cancel your subscription or don’t ever click there again. You’re being held in contempt by clowns.)

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These critics with all the illusions they create about artists—it’s really just idol worship. — John Lennon

Limitations imposed on a musically educated and serious pop music critic by his or her musically illiterate readership are unfortunate but predictable. Of far greater note—another dimension entirely—is authority invested in ostensibly sober-minded academics and professional critics who turn out to be just plain incompetent, or worse, panting lovesick groupies.

But the frenzied infatuation of over-anxious fandom can be encountered anywhere—from the patriciate to the hoi-polloi.

And so I give you just one example, from probably THE most prominent deliriously swooning academic of them all: former Cambridge and Oxford University (now Boston University) professor, past president of the Association of Literary Scholars, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, author of over 30 books on poets and poetry—and insufferably cretinous Bob Dylan fanboy—Sir Christopher Ricks:

I think it’s an immense privilege simply to be alive at the same time as Bob Dylan! We should all be so grateful!...Not a day goes by when I don’t listen to him or at least think about him!

Yes, academics and intellectuals can be just as embarrassingly besotted with celebrity and hero worship as anyone else. There are hundreds of books about the Beatles, for instance, scores about the Rolling Stones and Elvis, and well over 300 hagiographic books published on Dylan and his songs. Few of these rise above simply being endorsements of celebrity. (Why Dylan and his songs are such an ideal hobby for the currently ascendant crop of baby boomer academics, however, is particularly noteworthy and will be looked at in a later section.)

But let me also be absolutely clear that finding meanings hidden in artistic works, diving beneath the surface to unearth resonant, substantive and internally consistent alternate readings and applications of what the writer has provided—whether such was intentionally created by the writer or wholly imputed and supported by careful critical analysis—is a valuable and, if successful, vastly rewarding scholarly venture. Secondary meanings and allusive harmonies in a creative work can be a sobering proof of artistic accomplishment—though, importantly and absolutely, a work may be admirably insightful and eloquent without them. Any questions? We’re not philistines here.

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Those who can do, those who can’t become teachers. — George Bernard Shaw

Within popular music academia we find a lot of frustrated latent, and de facto, conspiracy theorists—scholars and would-be scholars who can (and will) find and pound together the most absurd connections, concordances and extrapolations from the most tenuous evidence, all to support his or her pre-existing fetish. Religious zealots do it all the time—and so can the ambitious and/or willfully obtuse academic.

Let’s look for a moment at the aforementioned Mr Ricks and his galumphing and utterly dreadful 528-page homage to Bob’s lyrics, Dylan’s Visions of Sin.19 It’s one of the best-known examples of what might be termed a Dylan devotional—and a book so poorly written and smugly self-satisfied with its juvenile half-clevernesses that one quickly wants to simply throw the damned thing across the room in unalloyed disgust. Aside from the just plain vaingloriously sophomoric writing, it’s packed with disheveled sophistry and embarrassing genuflections—comparable, perhaps, to a lengthy North Korean news chronicle of the Dear Leader’s latest divine interventions. Ricks, as with so many enraptured fans, is the ecstatic parasite finding immortal magnificence everywhere he looks. And I do mean everywhere. Forget about ‘careful critical analysis’ as mentioned above; this guy suffers from childish over-excitement, proudly trumpeting whatever half-baked disconnected notions enter his wide-open head at any given moment. One presumes the fellow may be an infectiously enthusiastic teacher to bright-eyed college freshman out in the Big Wide World for the first time. But he’s an utterly lousy student—a walking personification of what might be called ‘literary confirmation bias’: his preconception dictates his judgment. Dylan wrote it? It is, ipso facto, simply dazzling. But this Ultimate Eager Fan—his pious and penitent attendance is de rigueur at every performance his idol plays within driving range20 (and of course all those performances are life-changing!)—is more than just your average tormented groupie. He goes so far—and I know this is hard to believe, yet it’s true—as to write the most embarrassingly and insipidly juvenile fan letters to Dylan. No, no, not at all of the “let me ask about the literary antecedents or poetic evocations of this line in (insert song title here)”-type, but complaining with deep personal anguish about how Bob dresses, or about his moustache—like some lovelorn pre-pubescent girl moping beneath a bedroom wall of cherished boyband posters.21

(In case you wonder: yes, I became curious about Ricks after suffering his jaw-droppingly inane book and recalling I’d just seen a similarly disjointed piece by him on another matter in The New York Review. So I clicked around to get some background, and the weirdness just kept piling up higher and higher. And as I argued earlier in the section on awards and awards shows, my strong advice to readers is not to be cowed by credentials and resume. Intellectual bantamweights like Ricks—as with other occasional high-energy/low-wattage characters prominent here and there around the world—can sometimes build impressive careers. Good for them. But let’s withhold deference and respect until we encounter genuine talent. On paper, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump have also had impressive careers.)

I’ll go on a bit here, because the abject puppy love of this ‘academic authority’ is just so ridiculously revealing, and it’s emblematic of the fact that with bozos like this we’re not at all dealing with thoughtful analysts but simply with ordinary armchair fans and besotted hobbyists. Ricks himself not only owns nearly 2,000 bootleg Dylan albums and studio outtakes, but he keeps in his office—and again, I am not making this up—the actual bathtub that came from Dylan’s childhood home in Minnesota, purchased on eBay, “It’s where the baby Bob made his first splash!” gushes Ricks. Ye-ow.

I’ll stop making fun of poor Sir Christopher after this final sample of carefully considered, sober and dispassionate analysis from him:

Bob Dylan is unquestionably the greatest living user of the English language!22

Just wow. Yes, he’s talking about the fellow who gave us the klutzy “Forever Young”, among other graceless rambles. What can you say? This is not a competent critic, nor even a capable intellect; this is a scatterbrained, besotted fan. But okay, enough. Comedy’s over.

And no, while out-and-out creepy infatuation with his hero obviously doesn’t alone rule out the sad sack Ricks as a possibly knowledgeable commentator on Dylan’s writing, his critiques unfortunately (but naturally) do indeed end up fully consistent with what one would expect: rapturous, unhinged, acrobatic panegyrics supported by the thinnest of conceits and the most pretzeled of arguments, interspersed with the occasionally curious but effectively irrelevant factual notice. In the end, an over-caffeinated confusion of giddiness and just plain idiocy. An in-depth review of Dylan’s Visions of Sin is far outside the scope of this manifesto, but to get some idea of the cloyingly bad writing and general ineptitude displayed, you might read one or more of the reviews mentioned in footnote 23 below.23

I go on at length about the unfortunate Ricks here because he’s probably the highest-profile Dylan worshipper, and because he’s so singularly cringe-worthy and laughable. But there are many, many more like him out there.

And as noted earlier in the section entitled “I’m Your Biggest Fan!”, idolatry is not criticism. And you know something more? It’s not really even appreciation.

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...and those who can’t teach become critics. — H. L. Mencken

Finally, we come to the Eighth Circle of Hell24: the exclusive backstage VIP lounge of fungible ‘rock journalist intellectuals’—almost an oxymoron, this—like (again), veteran Greil Marcus, to pick just one:

I’m not interested in what the songwriter thinks he or she is doing, what their desires are, what their intent is. What I’m interested in is what happens to the song when it’s out there in the world...Performance is more important than composition to me.25

With the absolutely stunning remarks above, Marcus fairly disqualifies himself as a critic of popular song. A song should arguably stand on its own—generally, that is, albeit most certainly not always—and we’ll get to that later. But that’s not what Marcus is arguing, as he’s clearly not really interested in actuality, but in his own tail-wagging-dog solipsistic pseudo-anthropology. (See his take on “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”, earlier.) And of course performance is obviously quite secondary to composition when analyzing a song—indeed composition, the writing, is the inextricable foundation of any discussion of performance.26 His many books, including Mystery Train, the re-release of which was the focus of the above interview quotes, while superficially well-written, are essentially the purple prose of the impetuous infatuate who’s just not really listening—and he’s obviously in water far beyond his depth when opining on popular songs themselves.

If by classic blues you mean any recording from the ’20s and ’30s, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a bad classic blues!27

Hopeless. But not unusual.

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The problem with rock criticism is the lack of criticism of the criticism. — Jon Landau

I don’t know and have never dealt with either of the two fellows whose ridiculousness I expose here, and surely Marcus and Ricks are well-intentioned and not stupid. And I could in fact have chosen from among many others to find comparable exemplars of so much that’s misguided and undisciplined in the world of popular music criticism—they’re not at all outliers, and their swaggering, staggering goofiness is far from unusual.

Marcus and Ricks are simply run-of-the-mill starry-eyed fans, that’s all—run-of-the-mill starry-eyed fans with credentials. And so perhaps a proper fit for their talents would be writing regular columns in Seventeen, or Sassy, or Tiger Beat, with their breathless ejaculations wedged between similarly gripping articles on “Beating Acne For Good!” and “Planning the Perfect Slumber Party!”.

For popular music to rise above the inconsequential, the clueless, the puerile, it’d be helpful if writers on popular music also rose, en masse, above the inconsequential, the clueless, the puerile.

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But back to the immediate matter at hand: the rhetorical question posed in the heading to this section, because journeymen examples like Marcus and Ricks at least know the language, and of the two at least Marcus can also evocatively use it. The writing in popular music criticism itself is regularly to a higher standard than the writing in what’s being reviewed.

And so, indeed, how many times have you delved into a music review in a reputably literate publication and/or by an ostensibly knowledgeable critic only to find, down deep in the piece when the act’s lyrics are finally looked at, that those lines are totally or near-totally lacking in intrinsically worthy observation or insight? They just lie there, comatose and leaden.

The worst writing in the article, yes, ends up having been those quoted lyrics—providing yet another anecdotal illustration of the pandemic unfocused poverty currently ascendant in American songwriting.

19In deference to William Morris’ famous instruction, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”, stuff this brazenly bad should certainly be neither purchased nor despoil anyone’s bookshelves. (If you’ve simply got to see what could warrant such disgust, your local library probably has a copy; see it there. Email me with your own reactions.)

21New York Times, 9/9/2004, in an article by Charles McGrath titled “Dylan, Master Poet? Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”: After the release of Dylan’s Time Out of Mind album in 1997, Mr Ricks was upset by the thin little mustache that Dylan had begun sporting. “I just don’t think it looks good,” he said. “Do you?” He added that he thought about getting up a petition reading: “Mr Dylan, please remove the stipple from your upper lip.” “I didn’t send it,” he said, “because my students said it might hurt Dylan’s feelings.”

24Fraud. (And, okay—to many, this manifesto will seem to have originated in the Sixth Circle: Heresy. Good.)

25ASCAP.com, 7/28/2015, interview by Steven Rosenfeld titled “Rock Critic Greil Marcus on the Power of Songwriters”.

26Similarly, in another field, here’s comic actor Jason Alexander on the success of the television show, Seinfeld: “Well 90% of the journey was in the great writing. The four of us (actors) just took it the last 10% of the way.”

When I hear a song that gets my attention I kind of right away want to see the lyrics, because it’s sometimes hard to understand them all and I don’t want to become attached to a song that’s just plain stupid. — Marika Lundeberg

We’re now going to look at a well-known song, and we’re going to adhere to the proscriptions and admonishments in the immediately preceding sections of Part One. We’re not going to be influenced by:

1. Our personal nostalgia
2. The songwriter’s fame and public success
3. Various awards and critical plaudits the song or songwriter may have garnered
4. How many times it’s been recorded or performed
5. The amount of money it’s reportedly earned

We are also not going to be concerned—yet, anyway—with:

1. The melody
2. The vocal performance of the song we know best or personally prefer
3. The instrumental performances
4. The original recording

Okay, ready? Here we go:

I give her all my love;
That’s all I do.
And if you saw my love
You’d love her too—
I love her.

She gives my everything;
And tenderly.
The kiss my lover brings;
She brings to me;
And I love her.

A love like ours
Could never die,
As long as I
Have you near me.

Bright are the stars that shine;
Dark is the sky.
I know this love of mine
Will never die;
And I love her.

Bright are the stars that shine;
Dark is the sky.
I know this love of mine
Will never die;
And I love her.28

I’ll presume that every reader here almost immediately, within the first couple of lines, recognizes this song is “And I Love Her”, by Paul McCartney—and so the tune, evoked personal events and memories, admiration for the Beatles generally and other impertinent peripherals clog the mind while reading the lyrics.29

But now that we’ve gone through that expanded experience, however, perhaps read them again—divorced from all that.

McCartney has stated “It was the first ballad that I impressed myself with.”30 Sad to note, he’s apparently not embarrassed when he says that, and he continues to regularly and confidently perform “And I Love Her” precisely as originally written. This is writing so pedestrian, so graceless and thudding, that we surely don’t really need to take it apart; yet a quick dissection may still be in order, if only to unequivocally substantiate the obvious crudeness.

If “I give her all my love” truly needs to be followed just a couple of lines later with “I love her”, someone obviously hasn’t been listening to what’s already been imparted, Paul—or you don’t realize you’re being utterly redundant. You give her all your love...and you ALSO love her?!? Have we missed something? (The first time through there’s no “and” before the “I love her”, which might allow someone to aver the line here is simply an acceptable reiteration, a summation, of the preceding, and not a pat redundancy. I think that ‘someone’ would be foolish. This is clearly not sophisticated writing.)

And the “If you saw my love, you’d love her too” line rather demotes the level of the ardor, as you’re simply saying she looks good—a pretty superficial and fleeting basis for the sublime love you wish to proclaim. “If you knew my love” would be better, certainly. After the second verse—filled with more clunkers—we learn that your love “could never die”...IF AND ONLY as long as you have her near you? So when she takes a weekend to see her dying Aunt Agnes, all that love will pretty much evaporate, eh? You’ll be back on the prowl—because that’s what you’re essentially implying there. A true love, Paul, would presumably be one that could easily weather a little distance and time apart.

And finally we end with the gooey, but twice-sung(!) “Bright are the stars that shine; dark is the sky” verse—which reminds, frankly, of a ‘Roses are red, violets are blue’ level of abjectly trite boilerplate; it’s the most banal of filler.

Just plain yuck. But ‘yuck’ that’s been performed in public and recorded by other acts thousands of times. It’s one of the most exalted and revered songs of the past half-century.

What more need be said about the abysmal state of recent popular song?

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Oh, I do hear you, McCartney Fans and Beatles Fans: HOW can I presume to separate the lyrics from the rest of this song?!? What about Paul’s melody? And his singing of the song? And George Harrison’s memorable guitar riff? It’s plain stupid to separate the music and lyrics like this—the song is a complete piece! That’s what a song is!

But no, you most definitely can separate music and lyrics. And you should separate music and lyrics. And—guess what—you already do separate music and lyrics. I’ll prove that to you in a later section.

It’s been suggested to me that we should simply—but quite steeply—lower our standards and excuse “And I Love Her” as a song targeted at, and a perfect fit for, 13-year olds. But as we’ll also note later (Section 35: The Kids Are Alright!) that’s really just a cop-out and pseudo-justification for inferior work. I myself remember wincing, or the self-aware childhood equivalent of wincing, certainly, when I first heard “And I Love Her”—and I doubt I was alone in that reaction.

Later on, we’ll also look again at this very song, to discuss other aspects of it—everything else substantive that’s part of it. But I said “everything else substantive”, so no, we still won’t at all care who wrote it, composed it, sang it and played on it; how big a hit it was/is; and so on and so on.

It’s also been proposed that as an ‘early period’ Beatles song, it might be received more charitably than later efforts which aspired to greater substance. But again, it’s one of their two or three (depending on your source) most covered songs, and it’s regularly praised as great work. So no.

Despite the adamantine and popularly heterodox positions advanced in this Manifesto, it is at heart simply an appeal to reason and intellectual integrity. So be entirely honest and candid here: is there any plausible world in which the above song lyrics themselves can be properly characterized as anything other than vapid crap—or your choice of words saying the equivalent?

If a reader remains unable to look objectively at the lyrics to “And I Love Her” severed from extraneous considerations, to engage the writing entirely on its own merit—rather, its embarrassing lack of merit—he or she is beyond the reach of what we’re engaged in here, and it’s probably a waste of time to continue. In that case, thanks for coming along this far; goodbye and best wishes.

28“And I Love Her”, copyright 1964 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

30John Lennon contributed some work on the chorus section of “And I Love Her”, but the extent of that secondary contribution was contested by him and McCartney.

PART TWO: On Performance and Genre

— HOW WE HEAR ’EM & WHENCE WE GET ’EM —

Section 17

“Yeah I Know It’s Crap, But You Really Hafta See ’Em LIVE!”

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. — Abraham Lincoln

We’ll now start to look at how popular songs are presented to us, and whence they derive.

And to start off this short section, let me quote myself—a dictum I attempt to present, whenever necessary, in as close an approximation as I can to Charlton Heston playing Moses thunderously parting the Red Sea: A Recording Is Not A Performance. I’ll repeat that—forwards and backwards, with doubled exclamation points at the end: A Recording Is Not A Performance! A Performance Is Not A Recording!!

Excitement elicited by a performance is entirely unrelated to excitement elicited by a recording. In basest example, there’s no doubt one can be lifted to congenial enthusiasm drinking beer with friends, listening to or dancing to some practiced bar band covering hits of the day and yesterday. A fun evening is had.

A recording, however, has nothing whatsoever to do with that or any other live performance—and if the act, and the material of the act, actually merits recorded (meaning strictly aural) presentation, a whole other set of considerations derives.31

What works on stage doesn’t necessarily work on record—and vice-versa. A wrong or slurred note on stage will be imperceptible to 99.9% of the people there—on record it will likely stand out like a glaring, flashing red light to everyone who hears it. Such ‘imperfections’, so-loved by starry-eyed romantic purists and academics, can drive the actual performers nuts, of course—because if he, she or they had it to do again, the mistake wouldn’t be there. “Hell, every other time we played it right, dammit!”

Similarly—and of particular note to the objectives of this manifesto—a lyric that is pretty damn trite or just plain idiotic when heard on a recording can be mitigated, obfuscated (indeed effectively buried) by purposeful slurring, rushing through, an instrument playing a particularly loud or intrusive note or riff at that moment, an eccentric physical mannerism or stunt, or other diversion when performed live. But it remains absolutely there in the actual song, an artifact and proof of inferior songwriting.32

A live presentation is called a live ‘performance’ for a reason.

31Within the recording industry, business-wise, the live album was traditionally considered a kind of holding action in an act’s stream of product—a way to stay in the public eye, and ostensibly stay current, without having to actually write and prepare new material. It also served, naturally, as a promotional device to help the act sell more tickets out on the road. (Quick note here: I one time asked a performer who’d put out one of the most successful live albums ever released how it all transpired. He chuckled and revealed that they’d only used one song recorded at the live gigs, and then went into the studio a week later to record all the songs again in that controlled environment. The audio engineer added an audience track to each cut—cutting in crowd hoots, hollers, laughter, applause—and it was all edited together and released as a massively successful ‘live’ album. The wowed critics wrote about how exciting, magical—and necessary—the record was; because, of course, “Man, you gotta hear ’em live!” Not even one, naturally, saw through the artifice, the de facto hoax.)

32Many tricks, though obviously not all, that are used to distract from inferior writing in a live performance can also be implemented when recording, of course. This will be dealt with in a later section.

Section 18

Over the Top? Ya Think?....

Beauty of style—and harmony, grace, and good rhythm—depend on simplicity. I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character. — Plato

I’m gonna continue on performance considerations here, because obviously it’s the vocal that brings the actual writing to our ears.

And a great vocal instrument—a voice that hits the notes squarely and rhythmically—is but the first step. The subsequent and far greater measure of a singer is his or her ability to deliver the intention of the lyrics without drawing attention to that delivery itself. Two educative cases come immediately to my mind: Eric Burdon’s well-known vocal on “The House of the Rising Sun” (sung to a memorably effective orchestration by the Animals, especially on guitar by Hilton Valentine and keyboards by Alan Price; of Dave Van Ronk’s from-the-ground-up re-arrangement of the traditional folk song) and the similarly well-known “I Will Always Love You” written and first performed by Dolly Parton. Again, these are songs with which every reader is certainly familiar, so good.

The traditional “Rising Sun” is a folk song in simple 4/4 time generally arranged across three chords (Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, others) that we presently know, primarily via the Animals, as a song in 6/8 arranged across five basic chords—and which is, incidentally, really the first mass-market example of folk-rock, easily antedating efforts by the Byrds and others.

And while Burdon clearly has a powerful voice and solid intonation, it’s his phrasing of the lyrics that fail to fully express the sentiments of the song. He allows the 6/8 meter to chop his delivery into an almost galumphing staccato: “There is......a house......in New Orleans......they call......The Rising Sun......and it’s been......the ruin......”, and so on. Given all the positive attributes of the rendition, and his natural gifts, it’s unfortunate that he turns the effort into as much a rote recitation as an evocative and powerful admonition. Don’t get me wrong, it certainly works as presented, but I’m not being picayune in pointing out the definite vocal deficiency here. And it is unfortunate. But it’s an aspect of singing just about any song that can be effectively anticipated and obviated with enough attention and care. Stretching this or that word or syllable, anticipating the beat here and there (meaning singing the last word in a lyric line ahead of the beat upon which it naturally falls) and/or retarding the lyric elsewhere, as may be found helpful there—all these things help to overcome any natural ‘sing-songy’ tendency of a specific song lyric. While discussing phrasing may seem to be a minor and peripheral matter, it’s what has kept Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday (for just two examples of great singers) in highest regard for so many years. Sinatra’s actual intonation—his nailing of the notes—wasn’t perfect or even consistent; and Holiday’s vocal range was really quite limited. Indeed, the argument could be seriously advanced that Burdon was gifted with a more capable innate instrument than either. And yet Sinatra or Holiday—singing to the Animals’ great arrangement—likely would have diminished his exertion to insignificance in comparison.

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Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” offers textbook illustrations of so much of what has gone wrong in English-language popular singing. The song itself is precariously—but in Parton’s very capable writerly hands33, quite effectively—balanced between fey and heartbreaking. And it’s that innate slippery purchase that has made hearing so many other renditions of it such an excruciating endurance test. Yes, I’m looking at you, all of you Whitney Houston wannabes and various contestants on The Voice, American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent and innumerable other repellently déclassé TV spectacles.

The musical term ‘melisma’ means holding a word or syllable for more than one note—perhaps its most common manifestation to those of us in the US is in the two notes allocated to the very first syllable of “The Star Spangled Banner”. There’s nothing at all inappropriate, cheap or deficient in using melisma—either through intentional writing or, if carefully invoked, in singing. What is insufferably self-indulgent—and almost always profoundly detrimental to a well-written song (as “I Will Always Love You” most certainly is)—is the addiction in recent years to over-the-top melismatic grandstanding as if such utterly irksome showboating somehow actually adds depth to a song. It does the exact opposite. Compare Houston’s tacky and overwrought singing of the song to, in particular, Parton’s own earliest 1970s performances of it. Yes, Parton uses melisma—again, it’s not the vocal application that’s objectionable, it’s the garishly assertive intrusion of that vocal application on a song itself that’s so pernicious. Parton’s melismatic delivery is simple, effective; in contrast, Houston’s peremptorily tosses all sincerity, resolution and heart into a dumpster so she can show off like an insufferably spoiled adolescent. Ridiculous and altogether painful—and again, detrimental to the intrinsic actual emotional effectiveness of the song.34, 35

So let’s go on to some other ruinous performance affectations.

33By the way, a quick note back on “The House of the Rising Sun”: Parton recorded her own version of that song—unfortunately in a musical production that is just plain BAD—but in which her re-write of the lyrics does a marvelously expansive and thoughtful job of both making the song more easily sung and more lyrically coherent. Dolly Parton—to those who may not know—is a very capable songwriter; one of the current true masters.

34What does work, and to electrifying effect, in that influential 1992 Houston rendition, however, is the uncued a capella key change 2/3 of the way through. It is such a powerful device, however, that melding it with a properly self-aware and deferential performance of the rest of the song would require a lot of care and circumspection—and it may admittedly still be ultimately impossible to square the two objectives. But had she and her producers been able to restrain themselves everywhere else, just this single device, correctly integrated, would have given them both a potentially great performance of a memorably romantic ballad—Houston certainly had the vocal instrument—and the hooky “star vehicle” they coveted. (En passant excursus: as to the occasional charge that a modulation—a key change—is a cheap trick, its use just a cheesy obviation of the otherwise possible necessity of writing an additional verse, I’ve several thoughts. But without taking too much time to go through them all here, let’s simply note there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the device—as with any tool the question is how it’s used and to what effect; and sometimes a song may even benefit from eschewing an additional lyric verse. Further, even the absolutely—assertively—musically unsophisticated proto-garage band, the Ramones, used a so-called “truck driver’s gear change” modulation in “I Wanna Be Sedated”. Again, the consideration is how and to what effect it’s used.)

35It’s my understanding that Elvis Presley was determined to record his own rendition of “I Will Always Love You”, but his manager demanded Parton hand over 50% of all the song royalties if Presley did it—claiming (probably honestly) that this was the deal they made on EVERY song Presley recorded and released, as an Elvis record would almost guarantee the sale of lotsa copies and so lotsa royalties. It’s to Parton’s credit she refused the avaricious business entreaty—and it serendipitously for her eventually resulted in certainly gaining her much more money from the song—but unfortunate that Presley didn’t record it anyway, as one must expect his generally brilliant ability to precisely and effectively navigate between bombast on one side and commonplace on the other would likely have delivered a spectacularly, definitively affecting rendition. Alas, we’ll never know.

Section 19

Yes, Yes, We Too Are ALL SO PROFOUNDLY SORRY You Weren’t Born on a Mississippi Cotton Plantation!....

Acting is the expression of a neurotic and insincere impulse. Quitting acting, that’s the sign of maturity. — Marlon Brando

Anecdote #1: I remember an edition of Fresh Air, the NPR interview show, some years ago in which the host, Terry Gross, interviewed John Fogerty of the band Creedence Clearwater Revival. When Gross asked Fogerty to simply say the words “turning” and “burning”—key words in the chorus of his song “Proud Mary”—he answered something like the following: “Uh, uh—turning and burning. But, but—when I sing, it just comes out ‘toynin’ and ‘boynin’. I don’t know why; it just naturally comes out that way....”

Yeah. Right.

I’m so glad to have ‘loyned’ that, John —I used to think you were just a parading poseur, but you’ve really ‘oyned’ my respect. (What? Oh, that. Well, ya see, John, when I talk I say “learned” and “earned”. But when I write, for some reason it just comes out “loyned” and “oyned”. Honest. I don’t know why; it just naturally comes out that way.)36

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Anecdote #2: A few years back a good friend sent me a link to a song performed by a then emerging act with which I was unfamiliar called Alabama Shakes. I clicked to it and endured no more than 30 seconds before reaching my limit with the florid travesty. That it turns out the lead vocalist is herself half-African American does nothing, of course, to license her blatant and ignorant de facto contempt for the rural black culture she pretends to represent and personify with her cavalierly disrespectful burlesque. She clearly has a capable voice; it would be nice to experience it without her inane plaster of pretension and condescension. Perhaps she’s even a good songwriter, but I may never know.

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Popular song performance allows—better: seems actively to encourage and reward—the most baldly contrived and manufactured personas, inauthentic presentations, and counterfeit conceits; all the while pompously dissembling as exactly the opposite. It’s another measure of the innate and insecure poverty of so much in the discipline that acts (lead singers in particular) regularly seek to obscure their authentic selves behind insufferably concocted masks and fabricated vocal ‘characters’—and that news media and public are so often at best acquiescent to, at worst eager collaborators in, the wholesale and demeaning charade.

The tendency in the vocal presentation is perhaps most apparent when a traditional blues song comes into play—suddenly the most erudite, educated and cosmopolitan performer will affect a slurring delivery and over-the-top accent he or she thinks is required to render justice to, or at least to properly perform, the song. “I jes’ be a-singin’ dis heah song so’s y’all ken be a-enjoyin’ muh truthful poh’boy se’f up heah on duh stage—ya gots me?” or some such similarly grating act.

Earlier I predicted that a hundred years from now awards and awards shows will be viewed as a quaint and treacly hallmark of the hubris of our times. A second prediction I’ll make here is that in the not too distant future the kind of condescending and heavy-handed vocal mannerisms exhibited by so many performers today—especially when appropriating presumed rural black dialect—will be viewed with the same distaste and disgust with which we presently adjudge performing in blackface.

From Tom Waits’ (and one-time inamorata Rickie Lee Jones’) slurring barfly fabrications, to the self-indulgent grunting inarticulations of Van Morrison and, to a lesser extent, Randy Newman, to the outright racist “I jes’ be a uneducated cotton plantation share cropper” (or more currently, “Suburban-Boy-Wants-to-be-a-Ghetto-Gangsta”) crap of so many blues players and rappers, to the contrived ‘good ole country boy’ twangs of Dwight Yoakam and (occasionally and incredibly) even middle-class bred Englishman Mick Jagger(!), the weirdness infects just about all branches of popular song performance

Singing in character is one thing—with a song in which the writing is clearly invested in a specific characterization and scenario (cf. musical theater). In just about any other circumstance—and particularly with a song that merits serious attention—it’s simple egotism, and it’s ultimately inimical to producing the desired effect. It demeans the songwriting.

Eschewing such bald contrivances also ultimately confers greater legitimacy and authority to the effort—the irritating vocal forgery is forsworn in favor of a more persuasive authenticity. Over the years, my ‘go to’ examples to underscore and substantiate the point have varied, but consider the effortless and largely unaffected singing of folkies Doc Watson and Gordon Lightfoot; or rockers including Joey Ramone and Jim Morrison—and of course there’s many others current or past who could be likewise cited. And look, isn’t the advice always given to a performer insecure about how he or she’ll be received, “Just trust what you’re singing and be yourself!”?

A good song—and that’s what we’re concerned with here—doesn’t need, and shouldn’t have inflicted on it, a singer’s vaunting impostures.

36For the record, no, Fogerty wasn’t “Born on the Bayou”, but in cosmopolitan Berkeley, California, and raised in the comfortable suburb of El Cerrito, a few miles north. And singing that song and others in his œuvre without the irritatingly counterfeit vocal contrivances would not diminish their impact. He’s not a bad songwriter.

Section 20

Art School Confidential37

What all the posturing results in is a vast detachment and cynicism on the part of the performers, since it’s impossible to have respect for an audience that’ll take just about anything you care to dish out. — Lester Bangs

So now let’s talk about playing dress-up.

Because ever-newer handfuls of promotional pasta are constantly whizzing by our ears, with the throwers hoping this time, finally, something will firmly stick to the wall, the rest of us become simply The Gullible Marketplace. The act attempts try after try, experimenting sequentially with wholly new manufactures of song orchestration and production—but much, much more often—of simply costuming and ‘image’. The regularly lodged license for all such contrivances and manufactures is one we dismissed earlier: no they’re not entertainers, after all....

They’re Artists!

We’re told the commercially successful act—the Britney Spears, David Bowie, Björk, Madonna or (insert-name-here)—is ‘reinventing itself’, with the procession of consecutive ‘re-inventions’ presented, through dress-up, as a sure sign of the act’s Continuing Cultural Importance and Artistic Bona Fides. Of course, most of the ‘re-invention’ (and I’ll put that spurious term in quotes every time I use it here) is quite literally just that uncomfortably tenuous and self-conscious costume change—entirely dispossessed of considered insight or cultural relevance beyond the most transient, the most superficial. “Ziggy Stardust”, anyone...?38

Alternatively, for the as yet unheralded act, the rebrandings serve as a door opening device; a serial set of calling cards on industrial and public awareness, in desperate hopes that sooner or later one of the constructions commercially clicks. I mean, dammit, what do we have to DO to become Big Stars, after all!?!? We can be just as weird as they are!!

As for the songs themselves—what it’s supposed to be all about, no?—novelty and production receive far more attention than the actual writing and composing.

The cart has come completely off the rails and wildly careened about ten miles downhill; while the horse looks down on it all in bewildered consternation. It’s art school run amok. Signifiers sans signal.

And while there’s nothing intrinsically disqualifying in preposterous and desperate attempts at being noticed, the begged question is how much such ridiculous theatrics and flatulent affectations ultimately undercut any claim to genuine significance. After all, if you wander into the room or on stage, in serious demeanor, wearing flowerpots on your head—or arriving in a fiberglass ‘egg’ and unctuously introducing yourself as ‘Lady Gaga’ or some such39—there is, certainly, a strong likelihood what you have to say will be as equally pre-fabricated, shallow, and bereft of authenticity. Cheap show-biz contrivances, dumbed-down schlock and ‘artsy’ empty posing are the primary gambits of the vacant wannabe and the cynical sales rep.

We all dress our best—and put on an act; well, put our best foot forward, certainly —when trying to impress. And a large part of show business is most assuredly just trying to make an impression; to ‘get in the door’. But significant content invariably requires time to germinate, gestate and effectively convey—a process not normally embraced by the impatient and fame-obsessed.40

And so to the art school crowd41, either literally or affectively, so determined to appear—desperate to somehow, somehow be—‘cutting edge’, even (cough, cough) ‘dangerous’(!), I offer this lovely and properly deflationary reckoning from French symbolist poet Paul Valéry over a century ago:

Far better to take the time and produce the sweat to perhaps end up offering actual substance in the material being delivered—the songs—than in yet more studied imbecilic behavior, pretentious posturing and wacky wardrobe.

Popular song is not alone, of course, but more than any other area of show business and the performing arts it encourages, celebrates—even sanctifies—the most banal and ersatz; impression over expression.

37This section’s subhead taken from the title of the four-page graphic novel by Daniel Clowes (subsequently adapted by him into a screenplay, with the resultant film directed by Terry Zwigoff).

38Let’s be absolutely clear about this and similarly vapid and uninhabited “characters” portentously trotted out as if such self-indulgent games of dress-up bear any resemblance to something worthy of consideration. A character is an entirety; not just a pretty frock and a blank stare pasted on a human frame belching out non sequitur song lyrics. That kind of artless display is, rather, empty peacockery.

39Or, similarly, if vainglory results in you naming your band “fun.” (sic—and yes, with that all-important period!) or your single self “tUnE-yArDs” (sic), “Will.I.Am” (sic)—or any one of the myriad comparable other monikers rampantly infecting rap, hip-hop and heavy metal in particular but permutating throughout popular music—one can’t help but wonder if you simply have too much time on your hands. Here’s a suggestion: instead of trying to impress us with your awe-inspiringly courageous contempt for prevailing orthography, spend the time re-writing some of the songs you’re performing and recording.

40Words of advice: when asked what someone wants to be or do, be wary if he or she immediately responds, “I want to be famous!”. As should be clear by now, such objective, while not inimical to creative ability and artistic merit, is at best most usually an egotistically counter-productive diversion from it.

41I myself was a student at both the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts). Art schools are a great environment in which to experiment, play and have fun; rarely availing milieux in which to create actual art or challenge convention.

Section 21

Dance? Okay fine. Dance! Now go away....

If anything, a lot of electronic dance music is stuff that hardly anyone listens to at home. It’s really only heard when people are out at a club. — David Byrne

Where lyric writing is subjectively weakest—in which sub-streams of popular songwriting one finds the least craft and inspiration—is open to debate and personal bias as well as disciplined study, of course. As generalizations, a run-of-the-mill Nashville audience might understandably find rap songs worthless; a Broadway audience might dismiss songs from the punk sphere—and so on. We each have our personal prejudices, predilections and enculturated expectations. But I expect most would agree that songs intended primarily for dancing—from fiddle tunes to disco to electronic dance music—might be leniently excused from criticism of puerility, inconsequence or plain inanity in what’s being sung above the pounding beat and repetitive foot-friendly syncopations. There may be an overarching point advanced via the vocals in the occasional dance number—if so, and if it’s accomplished exceptionally well, that’s certainly praiseworthy—but what’s actually being said, and how evocatively, how inventively, is really quite beside the primary point, no? Let’s dance....

Section 22

It’s Greek—Urdu, Swahili, Kazakh, Latin, Bengali—to Me

Melody is the essence of music. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Popular music with lyrics in a language the listener doesn’t understand obviously renders those lyrics and the vocal presentation of them as a solely musical experience—quite literally just another instrument in the musical mix, certainly devoid of precisely discernable content or message—and so also outside the scope of our task here. Excusez-moi. Je suis tellement désolé....

Section 23

Country Music is “Three Chords and the Truth” Computerized Drums, a Catering Truck and a Smirk

I enjoy the videos with the sound off, where you can look at the belly buttons and everything. Some really pretty girls; but I don’t know about the music. — Merle Haggard

Today’s Tin Pan Alley is Nashville, a songwriting factory town if ever there was one, and the songs derived therefrom essentially a highly lacquered and polished Southern-accented analogue to the mechanical rock band noise found in any bar down at the beach. Country music’s well-lubricated industrial muscle mostly churns out commodified rubbish that’s only a distant, cynical and cluelessly incompatible simulacrum of its forgotten white proletarian antecedents.

And the marketing of all that detritus underscores and exacerbates the wholesale poverty of the genre. A performance by one of the Nashville machine acts is really rather indistinguishable from watching a two-hour beer commercial. And it’s all delivered with the practiced oily glibness found at a convention of real estate agents.

Further, and as is unfortunately readily apparent, the socio-political foundation of current country music is a hardcore conservative-to-outright-fascist politics married to the basest and smarmiest retailing cynicism. Even the most circumspect and judiciously politically progressive or intellectually mindful songwriting and/or presentation presents a tangible challenge to parochial Nashville’s reactionary reigning mandarins—predictably resulting in the dumbest and shallowest dissimulations imaginable. Even the slightest ‘mis-step’ can invite career homicide (cf. the Dixie Chicks), while welcomed with raucous cheers and open arms is retrograde sexism, moronic braggadocio, calculated religiosity and sanctimonious flag-waving. Find an old pickup truck, sign on some practiced video girls, affect a deeper, more ‘manly’ baritone growl—then perhaps add in some cutaways to dogs, beer bar tableaux and pseudo-‘down home’ paraphernalia; dress the sets with patriotic props and working class marginalia—and rush the aggregate disheveled mess of footage to the editors to cobble together yet another video version of the Same Old Same Old.

The one true and unassailable positive about Nashville and country songs, however—and a critically important aspect we’ll return to later—is that the words in a country song are always clearly delivered, for easy and full comprehension. This isn’t just a vestige of Tin Pan Alley; it goes way back—past the songs of Schubert, Grieg, Beethoven; past the troubadours Blondel and Bernart de Ventadorn; deep into history, surely—to the first vocal recitals that were accompanied by pounding rocks and sticks together. While the overwhelming vast majority of country song lyrics that are so clearly delivered and comprehended is hack work, the current dominance of Nashville songwriting and country radio is testament to the importance of language and direct communication. And it’s a tangible rejection of the oft-promoted thesis that melody is the most important component in a popular song. (The preceding sentence is seminal, and may deserve reading again.)

Basic Nashville songwriting practice is to take one and only one interesting, novel or even substantive statement or locution—a key line, most often the whole or part of the ultimate song title—surround it with filler lines, repeat the key phrase a few times (in case we idiot listeners didn’t get it on first hearing), later during recording add in as many ‘hooky’ performance and production decorations as can be developed—and move on to the next effort.

If there’s any helpful lessons to be actually learned from the malodorous effluvia pumped out of Nashville and environs, it’s primarily just the most basic and rudimentary practices of simple song structure—as noted above, today’s country music is the wayward scion of Tin Pan Alley and its historical conventions. Valuable knowledge, to be sure, and a great starting point—but only the most elementary starting point.

Section 24

Country’s Brainier Half-Sibling: Americana

After they have been reassured and have lost their fear, they are so artless and so free with all they possess, that no one would believe it without having seen it. — Christopher Columbus

While I’m having a bit of fun above—the explorer was talking about the innocent natives he intruded upon after landing on Hispaniola in 1492, after all—he may’ve well been describing today’s Americana music scene, because that’s where all the oh-so-sensitive-and-sincere-singer-songwriters have settled in. It’s been written that “it takes an Americana song five minutes to say what a country song says in three”. Whether a legitimate comparison or not, it’s indicative of the cognate and inferential relationship of Americana to country. While country is freighted with obtuse swagger, however, Americana is the land of solipsism run amok—a national open mic night. (Also notable, en passant, is that like country music it’s an almost entirely caucasian milieu, except for the occasinal ‘guest spot’.)

But of primary relevance here, it’s a genre in which words—again, as in Nashville country—are generally of paramount significance. And it’s also the musical marketing category (which is how it was originated) most likely to produce material of lasting significance—this because Americana acts generally produce songs in which the words are presented for clear intelligibility, as noted, and which largely aspire to thoughtful and perceptive presentation and reception. Whether such is actually achieved or not is another matter, of course, and the unfortunate and cancerous blight of inarticulate ‘Poetic Lyrics’ is a regular occurrence in Americana songwriting—a natural tendency, perhaps, given the current critical endorsement and approbation given to it.

The awkward relationship of Americana acts to country—the Americana Music Association is even headquartered in Nashville and hands out its own annual awards there—serves as something of a brake on the creative freedom from industrial concerns and blandishments that full severance might encourage. As it is, there’s a constant pull and frequent cross-over from one brand to the other. Further and after all, if the songwriters right next door are making Big Bucks writing asinine ‘bro country’ garbage while you’re a starving La Boheme Americana artiste, the temptation to finally buy a nicer used car can easily be an understandable if unfortunate enticement to enthusiastically begging your way into the foulest of déclassé souqs: Nashville country music.

And a song that appears on the Americana music charts can concurrently appear, without much fuss, on the country music charts. The Americana label has even been the latter day tag and marketing classification for formerly MAJOR country acts, of course—a kinda ‘retirement home’ for Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and others when newer, fresher meat (and ever more cynically imbecilic songwriting) is being championed and mainlined by Nashville. The fact that such acts were essentially marginalized by Nashville also effectively substantiates that it is country music itself that has devolved and depleted so appreciably over past decades. The current meretricious miasma of posturing country music bozos and bozettes is not at all an evolving continuation, but rather an outright rejection, of the traditional higher aspirations and measures of the form itself in favor of its more menial representations.

Section 25

Tradition, Permanence, and the Illusion of Same

I thought the blues was a simple 12-bar format and it’s like a jam—we just improvise. Sonny Boy Williamson kicked the shit out of that for me. He said “We’re gonna do ‘Nine Below Zero’” and I thought well fine—it’s a blues! My assumption was you just tell me the key and the tempo and I’ll make it up. So I started, and he virtually whacked me round the head and said, “No, it starts with this!”, and he sang the opening motif to me—and then there’s a drum part, and then this happens, and so on; it was all very carefully and specifically constructed. I realized, suddenly, the blues isn’t an interchangeable jam at all—each song is very formally composed.42 — Eric Clapton

A folk song does not exist in any of its variants, but rather in the aggregate of its variants. — John Lomax

First up is that the songwriters—well, loosely, at least until the mid-nineteenth century—are usually unknown, the song’s specific origins lost in time. This makes the song malleable, even amorphous; finding a ‘textbook version’ becomes impossible—there are no textbook versions. As soon as a song or a specific line is taken apart, analyzed and re-assembled, one can stumble on a slightly divergent version of the song or line elsewhere that obviates any conclusions at which one may have just arrived. As John Lomax intimates above, a traditional song is a kind of stew, out of which each ladling can bring forth slightly (or wholly) different tastes and textures. So while one’s attempted re-write of, say, “Heartbreak Hotel” might be immediately exposed as counterfeit, a previously unfamiliar insertion into a traditional song—or a new and novel inversion or revision—could easily be (or if entirely fabricated, be duplicitously ascribed to) legitimate cultural anthropological research and exploitation.

Second is that actual folk songs (and I of course include blues here) are almost invariably derived from a working class environment and so tend to eschew intricate constructions—the poetry in traditional songs tends to be a direct, moralistic or aphoristic presentation, largely devoid of formal literary aspirations or allusions, yet sometimes with striking metaphors. (The melodic compositions are obviously invariably repetitive, and based around simple harmonic structures—serving primarily as a bed for the lyrics, though allowing for occasional musical flurries and even expansive elaborations within the established strict framework.)

And third is that what I’ll call ‘mainstream traditional songs’—folk and blues songs that are in today’s common canon—have already essentially gone through a curatorial process: the discarding, polishing and emendations of words, lines, entire formulations and ideas that, for one reason or another, were judged ineffective or of lesser resonance before the presently dominant construction. There’s a de facto curatorial reason this traditional song, in this generalized construction—and not that song or version over there—is regularly performed and recorded.

Which brings up another point I want to make here, implied by the above—and one that will disturb and offend the easily upset fragile rigidities of so many adherents and purveyors of folk, bluegrass, old-time, blues and other traditional forms: not all traditional songs are well-written, well-crafted or even musically interesting offerings. Just because it was born in the cotton fields or the coal mines, in the Appalachian hollows or on great wooden sailing ships—or was originally recorded in the back woods and released on 78rpm record—does not mean the song is musically and/or lyrically at all meritorious, or even significant. It may be of unquestionable interest culturally and historically, but it’s not necessarily accomplished or laudable intrinsically.

More to the point, it is absolutely proper to note lapses in the songwriting if and when they occur—and where possible, to address and possibly favorably affect those lapses. The danger, of course, is when such efforts yield a song version stripped of any real relationship beyond the most superficial to its heritage. We do owe something to the notion of fidelity.

Often of great help in arriving at a coherent edition, and again as alluded to in the statement by John Lomax above, a traditional song can bring along with it something like a gigantic bibliography, offering a potentially rich source for ideas, nuanced alternate lyrical realizations, different interpretations and divergent melodies for the song.

Discussing traditional songs is obviously appropriate here because so many such songs are recorded and performed right alongside material from contemporary songwriters, and so deserve to be not simply ignored, exempted—or worse, patronized. These are not museum pieces: precious, frozen, sanctified.

I occasionally do blue collar union work in the Hollywood studios, where what’s usually blasting out of radios and internet connections—even despite the exponentially expanded options presented by Spotify, Pandora and similar—is the same fucking fifty or so nominal ‘classic rock’ songs, over and Over and OVER again, ad-god-damn-nauseum. Yet one day recently, while working with some guys who were as sick as I of the expected rote playlist, I suddenly heard the first few notes of a song and performance I instantly recognized from many, many years before: one of the guys43 had somehow brought up “Lula Walls” (sometimes called “Lulu Walls”), by A.P. (Alvin Pleasant) Carter and recorded by the Carter Family in 1928. The tide of memories that flooded over me brought actual tears to my eyes, such was both the complete and utter unexpectedness of it in the present circumstance and the length of time since I’d last heard the song—a perfect illustration of the power of nostalgia, (see above). Indeed, I’d learned and played “Lula Walls” as a teenager growing up in the Deep South.

But despite the power with which the song entered my hearing that morning, looking at it with dispassion yields a piece of writing that, with the sole exception of the two word description of the titular character preceding mention of her name in the chorus, is about as pedestrian and banal as one might possibly devise:

One evening getting dark we first met at the park,
A-sittin’ by the fountain all alone.
I lifted up my hat and then began to chat;
She said she’d ’low me to see her at her home.

chorus:

Such a star I’ve never seen;
She’s as pretty as a queen;
She’s as perfect as an angel from above.
If she’d only be my wife
I’d live happy all my life,
With that aggravating beauty Lula Walls.

If she was only mine, I would build a house so fine,
And around it so many fences tall.
It would make me jealous free that no one else but me
Could gaze upon that beauty Lula Walls.

chorus repeat

One evening getting late I met her at the gate
I asked her if she’d wed me in the fall.
She only turned away and nothing would she say;
That aggravating beauty Lula Walls.

chorus repeat44

Folks, this is platitudinous vapidity. The only substantive thought or experience in the entire song is the idea of a beautiful woman being an aggravation—not easily courted by the singer. An “aggravating beauty”—I’ll buy that idea and locution. But now DO something with it. Because everything else here—all the adulations and all the mises en scene presented—are empty clichés, vacant of insight, evocation or interest; with the rhymes arriving with all the delightful subtlety of a Sherman Tank. In short, “Lula Walls” is a fair example of what today’s country songwriting continues to spew onto the American public: one half-baked but serviceable notion—surrounded and smothered by absolutely nothing other than innocuous bromides and padding.

The original Carter Family was a clear and wholesome representation of the heart, and evocation of the aspirations, of working class rural white America in the early twentieth century—an important and largely unaffected act whose recorded performances stand the test of time. But as one of the two generally recognized major founding acts of today’s country music (the other being Jimmie Rodgers, “The Singing Brakeman”—and we might add a third, Uncle Dave Macon) the songwriting constructions that in their hands delivered generally genuine and innocent, if unsophisticated, paeans have devolved into the hack and cynical manufactures vomited out of today’s Nashville. Rather than move above and beyond its antecedents, today’s country music burrows ever further beneath them.

- - -

Yet, to be precise, even the Carter Family doesn’t represent—their songs aren’t fully quintessential of—strictly traditional music, insofar as much of their material was either written ground-up or near ground-up (largely by A.P. Carter). The remainder was primarily songs derived from commercially created pieces that wended their way into isolated rural areas via informal person-to-person transmission, in a songwriting version of the children’s game of Telephone—such as, archetypically, the well-known song, “Wildwood Flower”, wayward descendant of 1860’s “I’ll Twine Mid the Ringlets” by J.P. Webster and Maud Irving.

So let’s briefly discuss a song that is incontestably a traditional song; authors unknown, but there were surely scores of them—arguably hundreds—spread over several centuries on at least two continents. There’s not even a certain title for the song, though, through the general democratic curatorial process mentioned above, most people today know it as “The Cuckoo”.

As the preceding sentences should understandably prepare us to accept, there are a zillion variations: in what verses to include (of the perhaps thirty or so documented. Fifty? A hundred?...), in what order (if any) they properly appear, in what each individual line might convey—and possibly in what each and every individual word should be. Here’s the basics of the version I’ve played now and then over the years.45

Oh, the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird,
An’ she warbles when she flies.
She’ll never holler “cu-ckoo”
’Til the fourth day of July.

Jack o’ Diamonds, Jack o’ Diamonds,
I know you from of old.
You robbed my poor pockets
Of their silver and their gold.

I’ve played cards in England;
I’ve played cards in Spain.
An’ I’ll bet you ten dollars
I’ll beat you next game.

I’m gonna build me a log cabin
On a mountain so high,
So I can see my baby
When she goes walkin’ by.

Yeah, the cuckoo, she’s a pretty bird,
An’ she warbles when she flies.
She’ll never holler “cu-ckoo”
’Til the fourth day of July.

My practice, when dealing with—when looking to take on and possibly performing—a traditional song is to look at what’s available in the stewpot; to look around for as many flavors or ‘collectable elements’ (verses, basically, but significant variants of those verses as well) as may be available and then to determine carefully which ones best work together to common end. In the above “Cuckoo” I use just four verses—from the perhaps 20-30 I’ve encountered here and there over the years—with one, what we’ll here call the ‘title verse’, used to bookend the others; to open and close the song. Nothing at all unique here, except perhaps the very limited number of available verses I incorporate.

My reason for that severe limitation is that this song, like so many traditional songs (again, including blues songs) can quickly devolve into a dish with too many flavors, I feel—so many disconnected verses (read: ideas) that it becomes more an incongruous litany of disparate complaints or uncoordinated observations, or a mix of both, than a cohesive whole.

Traditional songs tend to be constituted of very simple and straight-forward building blocks. But simple doesn’t mean simplistic—it can also be an adjective used to otherwise properly describe elegance and power, both of which there is a lot of in a really good traditional song. (And yes, there’s often also a lot of dross.) And to my ears, even with verses of roughly uniform eloquence, just pumping out verse after disconnected verse diminishes the overall impact—there’s a strong suggestion of ‘throwing in the kitchen sink’. A writerly schizophrenia. Verses in a traditional song can be so lean and potent that it can be like pouring way too much gunpowder into a canon if you stuff everything you have into the song. Where there’s a wish to lengthen the song for time, my choice, almost always, is to call on the instrumental accompaniment, or to possibly designate one specific verse as a de facto chorus and re-insert it more than once into the proceedings. Again, neither solution is at all unusual.

In my rendition of “The Cuckoo”, we have, along with the title verse, two of the remaining three concerning gambling, with the final one concerning admiration for a particular woman—so just two primary propositions, wrapped in a somewhat amorphous but engaging bracket. For dancing and similar—where words are of secondary importance and as much as anything else serve to simply break up the monotony—throwing everything ya got into the stew is fine, naturally. We sometimes have a real surfeit of those great, but conceptually entirely independent, ideas and verses—in most cases it’s of little consequence, so good. But to my ears, for literate presentation—for there to be an actual reason for these words to be listened to, and not just danced to—there should be a continuity either obviously delineated or clearly implied. More than one general theme is fine, I think—two certainly, and possibly even three. But careful! This a form in which less is more.

Later, we’ll look at another traditional song I’ve also played for many years—a down and basic 12-bar blues—and matters examined here will be looked at from another angle.

The objective, when one assembles a traditional song—and ‘assembles’ is a good way to put it—should be to seek concordances, continuities and complementary angles when possible, and to massage and mold them into that coherent presentation that lets the listener know there’s more here than just a heap of words from all over with no armature, no reason for internal association other than an indeterminate and confused historicity.

As I briefly mentioned in footnote 33, earlier, Dolly Parton did—intelligently, capably did—exactly what I describe here to “The House of The Rising Sun” in preparation for her own recorded performance of it. She presumably spread out the extant available verses on her desk, studied that material and physically re-arranged the pieces and parts, and added in her own slight editions. (But caveat emptor: The musical accompaniment and production on her recording of the song is just plain wretched—a bad reminder of how vapid Nashville oriented production can be, as insipid back in the 80s as now. Her construction of the lyrics, however, is great—as is her singing, naturally. But the rest? Well, consider yourself warned.)

Traditional songs require the same thought and precision in construction—or again, in assembling—as a song written ground-up, but with the critical and pivotal additional requirement that the song eventually presented be properly, intelligently consistent with historical antecedents. I think that’s a kinda proper respect we owe past generations, and a reflection of our own self-respect.

43I later learned it was one of the set painters—a New Yorker born in Puerto Rico—who knew, very much liked and had specifically typed “Carter Family” into the internet connection; a rewarding exemplar illustration of the wonderful and unexpected stew of cultures and ethnicities that comprises America. It made me smile broadly, with humility and pridedeference.

44“Lula Walls”, copyright 1928 by A.P. Carter. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

45Probably taken mostly from Clarence Ashley’s early-to-mid twentieth century version, as recorded by Alan Lomax in 1961.

Section 26

The Disarmingly Enabling Inscience of Rap and Hip-Hop

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. — Rudyard Kipling

I accept the argument that even describing rap and hip-hop as popular song may somewhat miss the mark, insofar as there’s a strong propensity in the form to virtually bury any music in a flood of language and booming beat. There are major rap stars, surely, who couldn’t knowledgeably play even Note One on an actual musical instrument, or creditably sing Note One without going through auto-tune.

But again, at this point we’re still addressing the lyrics side of songwriting. (We’ll get to musical composition later on, promise.) And this is a genre in which words—and what is being said, certainly—is the whole ballgame, or 90% of it. However, unfortunately—and given the inherent emphasis on the lyrics here—possibly even more clearly than in other forms, most of what’s being said is utterly worthless. In its worst manifestations it’s censurably repulsive, posturing garbage; wrapped in annoyingly ludicrous swagger.

What is incontestably noteworthy and positive however is how within rap—and we’ll use the term inclusive of its sundry offshoots and sub-genres—the lexical constructions and rhymes can veer so far, far away from the expected standard. Rap has arguably accelerated the acceptance of unusual constructions and imperfect rhyme in popular songwriting. (But its employment still remains most widely acclaimed, probably, in the poems of nineteenth century poet and mousy homebody, Emily Dickinson—tell that to the neighborhood wannabe gangsta.)

At one time rhyme in a song had an important technical function along with the desire for pleasing sonority—to aide simple understanding of the words being sung. Before phonographic reproduction, before electronic amplification, mere comprehension of generally unfamiliar material was a significant hurdle, and rhyme was a fundamental tool in overcoming it. But there are only so many perfect rhymes available for any word, obviously leading to overuse and eventual cliché.

The freedom that not being tied to conventional constructions and actual or even near rhyme allows is invigorating to popular songwriting. We’re all tired of ‘kissing/missing”, ‘love/above’, ‘chance/dance/romance’ and other obvious combinations—though this isn’t to say even the most banal rhyme can’t work within a fitting context (read: worthwhile surrounding information) and with helpful vocal delivery (such as, again, the singer arriving on the obvious rhyme well before the note upon which it would naturally fall). No, not being constrained by conventional practices in rhyme isn’t new, but in rap, almost as a rule, we’re wandering in the Wild West of Whatever Works—any traditional expectations in rhyme, meter and overall structure generally be damned.46

Effective writing in rap—and here I’m gonna jump right on the bandwagon the reader surely anticipates—is currently perhaps best evinced in the stage musical, Hamilton, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and in his preceding effort, In the Heights.47

When information is coming in rapidly, relentlessly—substantively—occasional lapses in craft can be forgiven, are essentially obviated, because the very next idea comes right on its heels without allowing the listener the opportunity to analyze or reflect: the general notion is enough. Contrast this with the first song we looked at here, “American Pie”—where the failures aren’t obscured by adjacent brilliance or even adjacent substantive information. In contradistinction, Miranda’s work generally provides a lot to consider throughout; most of it presented with respect for our intelligence, unafraid and able to reach us using a rich vocabulary. (There’s also very little purposely obfuscating dialect or patois, either inherent in the lyrics or affected in the delivery, something that often debilitates rap.)

By the way, the massive mainstream (generally well-educated, moneyed, largely caucasian) audience for Hamilton—writing which is indeed a product of rap sensibilities—is an illustration of the point made in Section 14 earlier: it’s not the form a work is in that matters, it’s the execution.

Yet writing adagio to perform prestissimo, if I can put it that way, is a simple enough endeavor. Right, ya just speed everything up beyond what might reasonably be expected, given the difficulty of the words and of the information conveyed, when in performance. The easiest of parlor tricks. However, without consistent actual worthwhile substance being present in that torrent of words—because some of it, and it’ll be a different part for each individual auditor, will be fully comprehended—the song is exposed as but verbosity for verbosity’s sake. Miranda regularly delivers, but the vast majority of rap and rap-influenced songs don’t even come close.

Whatever the generally low quality of the writing in rap and hip-hop—and it’s certainly that—the freedom the form brings to popular songwriting itself is refreshing and liberating. We are all tired of ‘kissing/missing’, ‘love/above’, ‘chance/dance/romance’—and ‘moon/June/spoon’—no?

46As for the delivery—the actual rapping—there’s always been popular songs that weren’t truly ‘sung’. A talking blues (first appearing in a song entitled just that, “Talking Blues”, by Chris Bouchillon, in 1926) and a patter song (Gilbert & Sullivan did them brilliantly in the late nineteenth century) are just two examples; (as is the vocal technique called “sprechstimme” in an operatic context). But that aspect of rap is largely irrelevant to this essay.

47Way off topic here, but both shows do suffer on stage, from the directoral freneticism so common in contemporary musical theater—choreography largely sans raison d’être or achieved evocation; marshaled throughout in the counter-productive and desperate panic to KEEP-EVERYTHING-MOVING-MOVING-MOVING-DAMMIT-DAMMIT-DAMMIT-PEOPLE-WILL-GET-BORED-AND-FALL-ASLEEP-IF-WE-DON’T!!—but that’s still one more topic for another essay one day.

Section 27

Come to the Cabaret, Old Chum?

Give my regards to Broadway! — George M. Cohan

Where one tends to find the most sophisticated musicianship—trained musical skills, if not necessarily musical compositional genius or even flair—can unfortunately tend to haul along with it the most pronounced class hauteur. As the section head obviously indicates, I’m addressing cabaret, Broadway, and attendant genres. But as with the affectations in country, rap, hard rock and anywhere else, it’s imperative to get past that—to examine the actual writing and composing independent of it. And, naturally, there’s occasionally some really great writing and composing found in this sometimes most conservative of arenas. Contemporary and recent songwriters who immediately come into my mind include Stephen Sondheim, Tim Rice, Craig Carnelia, Hal David, Howard Ashman, Robert Lopez and others. Musical theater—a successful stage musical—requires songs that are sung in character, and that regularly results in a song that may be well-written and evocative, but performed outside the show for which it’s designed may seem somewhat eccentric (e.g., “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”, “One Night in Bangkok”).

Working the same side of the street as Broadway and cabaret are songs in the so-called Great American Songbook48—the ‘standards’. Even when the writing and composing are beyond reproach, and may still feel current despite having been written countless decades ago, it can be admittedly difficult to find a way to present them freshly. But if it can be done with “The House of the Rising Sun”, as noted earlier, it can surely be done with songs by Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and the Gershwin brothers as well.

Note, I’m not talking about the tendency for acts in rock, country and similar to completely avoid association with these songs due to worry about “not being ‘authentic’ and properly ‘anti-establishment’”—until, that is, a career is on the skids and there’s nowhere else to turn. Suddenly it’s time to ‘re-invent’—and we learn the act secretly loved, Loved, LOVED Rodgers and Hammerstein all along! Wow, really? And even though they’re bringing absolutely nothing new to the material, they are dressed in formalwear now—so please buy this album, okay? (cf. Rod Stewart)

As with material from any other milieu, it’s all in how the material is addressed and presented; the intelligence and application brought to bear. And also as with material in any other milieu, there’s a whole lotta crap here as well.

But what I think is a particular strength in musical theater—and this gets to the aspect I wish to highlight and emphasize in this section—derives from the fact that the most important element in making a musical work is neither the lyrics nor the music, but what’s called the ‘book’, the story. There remains a place for reflection and commentary (and so, incidentally, a song that is more easily lifted from the show to make a viable stand-alone single), but elsewhere what’s most effective is what’s called an ‘extended musical scene’, which can last much longer than a traditional song. The length isn’t achieved by simply repeating and repeating a 3-4 minute predictable song-form bed ad infinitum, but by expanding it, contracting it, and diverging entirely from it—including sometimes combining two songs or musical motifs into a larger cohesive whole—in what can feel like a kind of free-form exploration, maintaining consonance with and support for what’s happening in the lyrics, those lyrics that abet the progress of the story.

Stellar examples include the so-called “Bench Scene” from Carousel, “Color and Light” from Sunday in the Park with George, “Prologue” from Into the Woods, and “All-American Prophet” from The Book of Mormon.49 We’re cut loose from the established, expected song-form and taken for a flight, taken for a spin, the direction and length of which are primarily determined by the requirements of the lyrical objectives. The music and structure are effectively subordinated to and focused on conveying important, necessary exposition—substantive information.

49Carousel by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods both by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, The Book of Mormon by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone.

Section 28

Stuck Between (a) Rock and a...Stack of Marshall Amplifiers

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world. — Federico Fellini

Probably more than in any other place in popular music, (aside from strictly dance music, as alluded to earlier) hard rock songs live or die by the riff—the endlessly repeated musical phrase that surrounds and permeates the song. But that’s a musical factor, so we’ll get to it later on.

As concerns what is actually said in a hard rock song, I think we can offer as a fair generalization (but generalization nonetheless) that “The harder the rock, the less easily decipherable the point of it all”. Or how ’bout a cheap shot version of that? “The heavier the metal, the lighter the mental.” (Digressive rumination: I’m always somewhat amused by the posturing of heavy metal in particular, insofar as it attempts to fuse the rather antithetical sensibilities of Pre-Raphaelite esthetics and future dystopian fantasies. I guess one can manufacture a synthesis, but ya really kinda hafta go one way or the other, dontcha?)

But anyway, let’s quickly look at a couple of extremely well-known mainstream hard rock songs for a moment, examples in which many or most of the lyrics are readily discernible, even if the context and objectives aren’t necessarily understandable, and continuity and consistency appear to be entirely alien concepts.

It may be claimed—well, in fact there most certainly are lots of zealously advanced competing claims about the specifics—that Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” (lyrics by Freddie Mercury) or Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven“ (lyrics by Robert Plant) imparts this or that Deep and Universal Message, for instance.

But all the actual pertinent testimonies and indications point in the exact opposite direction.

Here’s Queen guitarist Brian May: “What is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ about? Well, I don’t think we’ll ever know...I think it’s best to leave it with a question mark in the air.”50

And here’s Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant: “Depending on what day it is, I interpret ‘Stairway’ differently each time—and I wrote it...I’m still trying to work out what I was talking about. Everyone is!”51

Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page chimes in: “The wonderful thing about ‘Stairway’ is the fact that just about everybody has got their own individual interpretation to it...Over the years, people have come to me with all manner of stories about what it meant....”52

Finding rock songwriters who admit having no friggin’ idea what they’re actually ‘saying’ isn’t hard, unfortunately. But even if it were, the songs speak for themselves—or rather, all too often don’t speak for themselves, and that’s the unfunny joke. Here’s Noel Gallagher of Oasis, concerning his massive commercial hit song “Don’t Look Back in Anger”: “I get the odd night when I’m halfway through it, and I say to myself, ‘I still don’t know what these words mean!’ I’m thinking ‘What the fuck?’...And all these kids will be singing it at the top of their voices with all their arms around each other and I kind of feel like stopping and going, ‘Look, can somebody help me out here? Am I missing something?’”53

What’s really sad about the above statements is that there’s little embarrassment or disappointment evinced by any of the speakers. They may be bemused, but if anything they’re on balance proud of not communicating—or to be more precise, of assertively blasting out songs that they effectively know say nothing intrinsically. If there’s any message or information in the communication between songwriter and auditor—better: in the intersection of songwriter and auditor—it’s entirely a subjective construction of the auditor’s imagination, imputations and psychological preferences. It isn’t really communication at all.

Am I asserting or implying that all hard rock songs that have an unexpected or unusual lyrical content are lesser works that fail as communicative efforts? Not at all.

A strong counter example to underscore that is the Who’s “I Can See For Miles” (written by Pete Townsend)—which I expect just about anyone could also fairly characterize as a similarly full-on oddball conception, no? Someone claiming to literally see for miles and miles? How is an idea like that even born? But this song 100% works. Brilliantly done: a clear, consistent, distinct point of view—and unabashedly idiosyncratic, certainly—that communicates exactly what the songwriter intended.

And—surprise!—as we’ll see in a later section, a song like “I Can See For Miles” is much better written, much more poetic, if you will, than so many other songs which are critically exalted as actual ‘poetry’.

That “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Stairway to Heaven” satisfy uncritical audiences is primarily a testament to the musical composition. As noted, we’re given little more than pretentious pomposities and irrational solipsisms—not much coherent information is imparted; even less is worth retaining. But the construction created for that lyrical nonsense is far removed from any conventional song format. In fact, they resemble, more than anything else, those extended musical scenes from a West End or Broadway show that I described in the preceding section.

Pause for a moment here to consider that surely unexpected similarity.

Neither “Rhapsody” nor “Stairway” is at all structurally or musically predictable from moment to moment, and each traverses a lot of changing, shifting ground. We have no idea where they’re going next, and so we’re swept along on an unusual musical journey.

But after it’s all over, wouldn’t it have been rewarding to know the excursion had actually been worth our damned time and attention?

50Queen: Greatest Video Hits DVD, 2002.

51London press conference, 9/20/2012.

52Fresh Air, 6/2/2003.

53ContactMusic.com, 8/12/2005.

PART THREE: Lyrics

— THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY —

We’ll now finally start to swing back to songwriting specifics.
Unfortunately, however, there’s still one more Big Negative to address, and so we’ll start Part Three with that, get it over with, and move forward—first into aspects both practical and theoretical. Then we’ll examine several well-known songs—examples of both good and bad songwriting—in light of what’s been exposed in previous sections.

Section 29

Ethics? In SONGWRITING...?!?
or “Scumbags and Lowlifes and Crooks, Oh My!”

Just because someone’s a musician, I don’t say he’s cleansed and holy. You got some dirty people in all walks of life. Look at all the things the politicians and people like that have to cover up and sweep under the rug—why in hell would a musician be any better? — Johnny Shines

Ready for an indignant digression here?

This section took a lot of time to put together, and to a reader who might think I must’ve secretly enjoyed it due to the obvious amount of research and effort that was required, let me be absolutely clear that isnotthe case. And I’m irritated about two aspects of it all, actually: 1) the facts themselves, and 2) the time and work required away from the focus of this manifesto to substantiate them properly for a reader who may be ignorant of them—and then to write it up.

Because we come now to the practice of ripping off songwriting credits, and some of the biggest names in popular music have done it, with greater or lesser degrees of dishonesty—Johnny Cash, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens and Led Zeppelin among them.54

But probably the most feverish of all is Bob Dylan. Which is doubly unfortunate here, because it would be a lot cleaner, a lot less encumbered, were we able to limit our look at him and his work strictly to that work. But even before getting to that, there’s this subordinate but pervasive aspect to address. And as he’s without question the current lion of popular songwriting, to leave it unattended would be a dereliction of responsibility—and imply de facto apologia for a very despicable practice; one perfectly illustrative of the current critical unseriousness regularly encountered in popular music.

- - -

Bob Dylan is an admitted plagiarist. He is a thief. A crook. When confronted, he claims he’s simply ‘using the folk process’, which—according to him—has always permitted stealing work created by someone else.

That is just plain untrue, and I’ll explain why.

‘The folk process’ is in fact primarily a convenient academic characterization for the antecedents of songs, the specific provenance and evolution of which is unclear, unknown. Full stop.

Over decades or even centuries in the pre-industrial world, a song would naturally and inexorably change and calve new versions as it was transmitted, usually orally, from one performer to another, one generation to the next—often incorporating bits and pieces from elsewhere into the continuously evolving admixture the song had become. The so-called folk process is an after-the-fact label for that untraceable and highly individualized process, nothing more. It is definitely not a license for self-entitled multi-millionaires or anyone else to knowingly steal the work of others, all the while claiming they’re just ‘aw, shucks’ simple and innocent folk singers.

Dylan’s documented history of larceny dates from late adolescence55 but continued into his recording career, perhaps most noticeably early-on with his claim of authorship of “Corrina, Corrina”, a song very much still under the 1929 copyright (renewed in 1957) of by-then destitute blues singer Bo Chatmon. Dylan’s career had already taken off, with money starting to roll in; Chatmon died a couple of years later, in abject poverty.

And far, far beyond anything anyone else has done in popular songwriting, he’s ripped off countless traditional melodies for his ‘original songs’. His “Masters of War” IS “Nottamun Town”, “Blowin’ in the Wind” IS “No More Auction Block”, “With God On Our Side” IS “The Patriot Game”, “I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine” IS “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night”, “Bob Dylan’s Dream” IS “Lord Franklin” —and the list quite literally does go on and On and ON and ON; one outright stolen melody after another, often along with the lyrical blue-print as well. To put the industrial-strength piracy into proper perspective, it’s really very much akin to rapaciously plundering archeological sites, demolishing ancient graveyards with a bulldozer—and is in fact profoundly contemptuous and destructive of folk music, history and culture. To be clear, Dylan Incorporated isn’t the only pop music entertainment conglomerate—in his case, a costumed in denim ‘folk singer’—to strip mine traditional tunes; he’s just the most ruthless, spineless and prosperous.

We’ll more directly address matters on the music side of songwriting later, however.

But as concerns lyrics, Dylan’s imperious plagiarism of the poetry of Henry Timrod and the copyrighted work of Junichi Saga is undisputed. And when exposed and confronted, he defends himself by claiming he’s perfectly innocent, adding—and here’s the fun part—that anyone who doesn’t accept that is an “evil motherfucker!”.56

(While our primary subject here is obviously songwriting, it may be worth also noting that Dylan can’t even seem to indulge in his hobby of painting pictures—paintings then sold for many thousands of dollars—without stealing.57 And his 2004 book, Chronicles: Volume I is packed to the rafters with outright plagiarized material. So there’s a history of criminality here, not isolated and possibly even blameless inadvertencies.)

A simple truth should come to the fore: Plagiarism wants you not to know or recognize the original and be wowed by what you’ve just encountered, crediting it to the immediate purveyor; whereas allusion wants you to know—or be newly-informed via proper citation—of the original and be pleased by the concordance. To predacious Bob, those who aren’t decieved, oblivious or acquiescent to his larcenies are, to repeat, “evil motherfuckers”.

Finally, and quite telling—critically telling—is that despite the claim his own self-entitled thefts are harmless and firmly ‘within the folk process’, Dylan’s on constant vigil when he’s on the other side.58, 59 His pugnacious Beverly Hills attorneys and managers are ready to pounce on adventitious trespassers when his songs are even remotely threatened with the possibility of copyright infringement, to squeeze as much money as possible from them—those other people now using Dylan’s, ahem, um, ‘folk process’.

You can’t have it both ways.

By the way, though Dylan asserts he’s simply following in the tradition of people like his hero, Woody Guthrie, that’s another lie. Guthrie’s outlook and practice were far removed from Dylan’s. He regularly and notably even used an anti-copyright notice—including this one:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.

Yet Guthrie did use melodies from popular songs of his era. “This Land is Your Land” is taken from The Carter Family’s “When the World’s On Fire”, for instance (and perhaps their “Little Darlin’ Pal of Mine” as well—it’s an extremely common chord progression and simple melody) and there’s no telling what he might have done if presented with the option of ‘graduating’ to Dylan’s level of grand larceny. But the ongoing social consciousness and commitment to the politics of his work was clearly primary, with the songs themselves even sometimes deliberately transient. There was no big money nor lasting large commercial imprint to be obtained. Guthrie’s songs were generally intended, first and foremost, to mobilize and celebrate working class pride, empowerment and social progress. Dylan’s thefts, in contradistinction, are designed to advance his cupidity and personal agenda, almost entirely bereft of larger consideration.60 With Guthrie, one gets a class-conscious message; with Dylan, the message is Bob—which is perhaps why even his songs that address actual issues strike, generally, as ill-fitting and ultimately shallow. Guthrie’s work embraced political righteous indignation; Dylan’s trumpets self-righteous celebrity entitlement. Neither was/is a truly great writer, but I’ll take Guthrie’s assertively egalitarian worldview over Dylan’s arrogantly selfish vacancy any day.

- - -

Good artists borrow; great artists steal.

The above bit of fatuous casuistry, in various permutations attributed to various sources over past decades61, has been tossed out, cavalierly, as some kind of twisted and indisputable defense for plagiarism, especially including Dylan’s by his admirers. “Good artists borrow; great artists steal”? If we compliantly agree to accept the notion, then perhaps Dylan’s apologists will have to agree in return, and based on that formula, that the Greatest Artist of the Past Half-Century certainly isn’t at all their Bob...but surely Andrew Lloyd Webber.62 Willing to go there, Dylanites?

Yet let’s take the above a little further, because I’d like to offer my own revision of that persistent, despicable “Good artists borrow; great artists steal” sophism.

If one isn’t simply duplicating but truly expanding on something that was written by someone else before him or her, then the use can be possibly justified, both morally and artistically. To me, it doesn’t matter whence an idea or even a locution or insight derives—if it works in a compelling and original realization. However, and in each and every case, if the ‘borrowing’—the unauthorized appropriation, really—is of significance, then sourcing IS ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED. Naturally. And why not? What’s lost in doing so?

Looked at from the other side, is anything—anything beyond the obvious moral imperative—gained through attribution? The answer is yes. Absolutely. The borrower, if his or her usage augments and expands on the original, is now firmly part of the artistic chain, the cultural continuum, attempting respectful commune with the greats and near-greats.

Another ‘defense’ of Bob’s thieveries (and by extension, presumably of Led Zeppelin’s and of any other of popular music’s willfully contemptuous plagiarisms as well) comes from Princeton University’s Sean Wilentz, yet one more happily unctuous and fawning Dylan hobbyist, who gushes, “Art is different—especially the kind Dylan creates!”

Except that the fact the ‘art’ Dylan ‘creates’ makes him and his record company millions upon millions of dollars, I’m not sure I see any ‘difference’. An across-the-board license to steal, though, like that just granted by ditzy Professor Wilentz, is rather breath-taking.

And as noted, it’s not at all clear if all art is ‘different’ in Wilentz’s asinine argument—meaning maybe he and others like him are okay with anyone and everyone plagiarizing so long as their songs pass some kinda ‘art test’. But what would that be? If they’re played on the radio? If the act has lots of money? Good lawyers? They smile a lot? Tough call.

Hey, I’ve got it! Perhaps (as would seem to be the line advocated by the goose-stepping Dylan groupies) Bob alone should be exempt and allowed to pillage, ransack and rip off—because he’s Just So Very, Very Special. Perfect! In fact, we should presumably all encourage Dylan to steal—wildly applaud and genuflect each time he does, and then tell all the victims, and anyone else scrupulous and respectful of American cultural history, to go fuck themselves....

Seriously, theft is theft, no? Hell, maybe the sheltered Wilentz has never heard of artists Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey and Jeff Koons? Or of George Harrison of the Beatles? Or of any of the other songwriters mentioned at the beginning of this section—and of all the money they’ve had to pay out in court judgments and settlements, all because no, art is not ‘different’. (No word yet from dutiful sycophants like Wilentz on Dylan’s plagiarized oil paintings or book, and if they’re also, uh, ‘different’.)

And just think about it for a moment. When some backwoods banjo player a hundred years ago commandeered a piece of music or a line of lyrics to perform at the Saturday night barn dance, there really was ‘no harm, no foul’—or nothing of seminal cultural consequence, certainly, or even minor financial displacement. And the same latitude might properly apply today in most contexts that are similarly inconsequential or informal. The situation is of more concern, though still only marginally, with Guthrie’s generally fleeting appropriations. When Dylan steals, however, we’ve reached truly intensive scorched-earth industrialized rapacity. If the material is still under copyright, it takes income from his victims and stuffs it very firmly into his own pockets. That’s clear. It also, much more substantively, quite literally claims their creative work isn’t theirs at all, but his! And even when he thieves material that has fallen out of copyright, he still attempts to hide his thefts—when all it takes to act ethically, honorably, is a few words on the CD sleeve or his web site attributing the antecedents and sources.

And so I’ll repeat the distinction made earlier: Plagiarism wants you not to know the original, whereas allusion wants you to know.63

In just about any other discipline, an arrogant racketeer like Dylan is shamed and shunned—usually with devastating career repercussions. That he simply steamrolls onward, entirely unaffected, is yet another emblematic illustration of the current malignancy of popular music criticism, and the contemporary disposable nature of popular songs generally. If Dylan is or was ahead of his time in any serious capacity, it may simply be that his greedy and self-entitled dishonesty is a perfect exemplar of the present diseased Trump Era. After all, if Bob Dylan can get away with outright plagiarism, it really does effectively license ANYONE to do the same.

What this all does, bottom line—even beyond the wholesale destruction of cultural patrimony and the personal, professional and creative damage to the direct victims—is underscore and exacerbate the two most pandemically deleterious predispositions in popular music. The first is the contempt for art and audiences by the successful act, which operates with impunity. (The contempt for morality and law are just symptoms.) The second is the cognitive dissonance engaged in by the audience—enthusiastic, knee-jerk fans—that eagerly, robotically manufactures eye-rollingly warped excuses and alibis for criminality.

‘Professional fans’—enthusiasts who are critics and academics—and who would vehemently, vigorously condemn and completely ostracize a fellow writer who plagiarized, suddenly discover, fabricate and obediently champion delusional contortions and exonerating rationales for the celebrity act that does the very same thing. Ordinary fans, who at home would immediately call the police if they saw a thief rip off something from a neighbor’s front porch, shrug their shoulders and smile with approving amusement when their pop hero does the exact same thing. The critic, academic and average fan have willfully forged a demeaning and repugnant alliance with corruption. And the act laughs all the way to the bank—or the bank and the Nobel Prize.64

54Paul Simon’s “American Tune” uses an uncredited melody—rather, a melody dishonestly credited to him—which is actually “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”, a hymn composed by Hans Leo Hassler around 1600. Johnny Cash outright stole “Folsom Prison Blues”—words and music—from “Crescent City Blues”, written in 1953 by Gordon Jenkins. Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens took writing and composing credit for “Morning Has Broken”, which is another church hymn, this one with lyrics written in 1931 by Eleanor Farjeon, to a melody from a Christmas carol called “Child in the Manger”. Brian Wilson stole Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” for “Surfin’ USA”. None of these facts are contested. And here’s a list of Led Zeppelin’s many, many rip-offs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Led_Zeppelin_songs_written_or_inspired_by_others, along with some informal side-by-side audio comparisons: http://www.hark.com/clips/qmqjfdsztg-howard-stern-exposes-led-zeppelin-as-a-farce.

56Rolling Stone, 9/27/2012, interview by Mikal Gilmore, titled, “Bob Dylan Unleashed”:Before we end the conversation, I want to ask about the controversy over your quotations in your songs from the works of other writers, such as Japanese author Junichi Saga’s “Confessions of a Yakuza”, and the Civil War poetry of Henry Timrod. Some critics say that you didn’t cite your sources clearly. Yet in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. What’s your response to those kinds of charges?
Oh, yeah, in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It’s true for everybody, but me. I mean, everyone else can do it but not me. There are different rules for me. And as far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who’s been reading him lately? And who’s pushed him to the forefront? Who’s been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it’s so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. It’s an old thing—it’s part of the tradition. It goes way back. These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.Seriously?
I’m working within my art form. It’s that simple. I work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It’s called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it. (“Uh, Bob? No, we don’t.”—MK)

58CBSNews Interactive 9/13/2012, by Lauren Moraski, titled “Dylan Calls Plagiarism Accusers ‘Wussies’”:Meanwhile, Dylan himself has been caught up in lawsuit involving use of his name. In 1994, he filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Apple, asking for a court order to keep the computer giant from using his name. There are also reports Dylan reached an out-of-court settlement in 1995 with Hootie & the Blowfish over the band’s hit song “Only Wanna Be With You”. Dylan reportedly claimed frontman Darius Rucker borrowed some of his lyrics in the track.

59Los Angeles Times; 6/26/1988, by Patrick Goldstein, titled “Rod Stewart Sounds an Echo of Dylan”:“The song, ‘Forever Young’, is very much Rod’s song,” explained his manager, Arnold Stiefel. ”When we were putting the album together, someone pointed out that there was a Dylan song with the same title, so we listened to the two songs. And it would be fair to say that while the melody and the music are not at all the same, the idea is similar.” Saying he was concerned, Stiefel immediately sent the song to Dylan, asking whether he had a problem with it. “His attorney relayed the message that he had no problem with the song—but he did want to participate in the ownership.” So Dylan will get a 50-50 split of all the royalties.

60We should probably note that Dylan’s net worth—I just checked—is estimated to be a hundred and eighty million dollars.

61No, Picasso never said that, nor did Stravinsky, nor Eliot, nor Faulkner—it’s as bogus as a quote as it is as a defense.

63This is actually a quote from our favorite Dylanite, Chris Ricks, who (laughably but predictably) immediately after offering this concise differentiation scurries back into the Twilight Zone of Cognitive Dissonance, defending his heartthrob hero in perfectly ridiculous Wilentzian fashion as ‘special!’, ‘different!’, etc, etc.

64Despite the seriousness of this section, I’m laughing out loud in mockery as I add this footnote. Today, June 13, 2017—just a couple of days after writing for this section was completed—we learn that Dylan even plagiarized his NOBEL PRIZE ACCEPTANCE SPEECH! The Nobel doofuses (doofi?) deserve contempt and ridicule as much as does Dylan. And just consider for a moment: if presented with a complete list of every single possible situation in life in which one might plagiarize, wouldn’t the speech accepting the Nobel Prize—in Literature(!)—be THE most unlikely, THE most sacrosanct? The entire blundering circus of the 2016 Nobel Lit Prize is both ludicrous and outright repulsive. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2017/06/did_bob_dylan_take_from_sparknotes_for_his_nobel_lecture.html. And yet, Dylan’s most slavishly adoring fans, critics and academics fiercely defend him, believe it or not—complicitly place him above censure or even criticism for even this most garish and crude dishonesty. We do truly live in the Trump Era.
https://heatst.com/entertainment/academics-defend-bob-dylans-plagiarism-as-a-post-modern-work-of-art/.

Section 30

The Twentieth Century Ended Almost Two Decades Ago

Great art speaks a language that every intelligent person can understand. Modernism speaks a different language. — Marshall McLuhan

I sometimes speculate that the lack of direction and articulation found in so many critically and popularly acclaimed songs of the past several decades or so may just be a product and illustration of the final throes of literary modernism—modernism having finally wound and found its way down into popular songwriting, taken refuge there, and refusing to die a long-overdue and honorable death.

One can read a modernist masterpiece, say Joyce’s Ulysses or Eliot’s The Waste Land, and marvel at the brilliant execution and impressive eclecticism, but it’s hard to avoid admitting the going can be quite a slog—at least as much an exercise in admiring and solving a demanding word puzzle as in potentially finding passing enlightenment or insight. Modernism opened culture to parading psychological depth front and center, though of course it’s always been evident in creative works, implied and necessary. As interior came to eclipse exterior, obscuration rebuffing revelation, it came to provide literary critics and college English departments so much raw material to explore, interpret and expound upon that we’ve largely allowed much of what literature traditionally can and should readily deliver as almost a matter of course (story, character, direct resonance) to become peripheral and discounted (even dishonored) as somehow inconsequential and superficial. Instead, a work becomes a game of intellectual hide-and-seek, an elitist competition of academic enterprise ever more removed from quotidian appreciation and application—or ready quotidian appreciation and application, surely.

While there is some insight in Eliot’s dictum, “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood”, subscription to the implied derogation of a work that can be immediately assimilated—it’s presumably not “genuine poetry”—exacerbates the problem. A poem—a song, story, novel—that we judge to be impressive should arguably do more than simply intellectually stun. It should viscerally involve, reveal and communicate—or it is, really, not much more than a parlor trick, albeit even a possibly commanding one. I don’t want to pick too much on Tom Eliot, but here’s another critical prescription of his that is only partly correct—in this case he was speaking about theater, but that obviously doesn’t confine the purview: “A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can’t be much good.”

Well again, yes—and no. An easy inference (and in deference to Eliot, possibly unintentional by him, but if so the fault in the glibness of his statement) is that comprehending a work in any immediate manner means the work is, necessarily, devoid of deeper substance. And while that’s of course ludicrous, it enjoys wide de facto cultural currency in modernist thinking: the explanation of an artwork is even more important than the artwork itself (cf. conceptual art). Repeating: the explanation of a work of art is more important—lasting, substantiating, worthy—than the work itself.

No.

What such thinking does in passing is generally cow an insecure populace into entirely subjugating their own intelligence and perception to the judgment of expert opinion; expert opinion that is absolutely culturally invaluable, of course, but that might be more productively and deferentially applied to complement and expand upon—increase—intelligently received appreciation, rather than demand appreciation be based entirely on subliminal analysis and understanding, the gaining of which is found primarily and conveniently within the remove of, and by, that scholarly elite; and that only works requiring such expert exegeses can be thought truly culturally valuable.

It’s wonderful to be introduced to aspects of creative innovation and achievement to which one was previously ignorant, but such can quite properly be in addition to—indeed, can be even justifiably peripheral to(!)—immediate perceptive cognition or intuition of legitimate artistic accomplishment. And of course, informed criticism can also perform the valuable subordinate functions of providing context, noting similarities and differences from related efforts, exposing derivative work that’s being passed off as innovative—even introducing questions about the fundamental validity of that initial intuitively, intellectually, or emotionally derived positive reaction.

But immediacy devoid of substantial substrata can most certainly provide wisdom or provoke worthy introspection—a punch to the gut is exactly what economy and precision in language allows. And happily, one often finds that when such is encountered, the elegant and resonant insight or observation actually isn’t barren of secondary and tertiary overtones after all. Such is the serendipitous beauty—the definitive character—of eloquence.

To be clear, in songwriting I’m differentiating between Hallmark Card kitsch (let’s pick on Dylan some more, so think not only of his execrable “Forever Young” but also of “Masters of War” or “Lay, Lady Lay”)—pedestrian clichés and locutions easily assimilated and easily discarded—and powerful and lasting resonances, also immediately recognized, such as those we’ll note later on when discussing Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee”.

On the other side, while entirely subterranean consistencies in an effort of ostensibly more serious invention can end up being of great intellectual reward (and a lot of fun), the work in question can remain essentially bereft of emotional satisfaction and/or resonance—and it’s the combination of the intellectual and the emotional that provides lasting plangence, no?

The Modernist Establishment—what we might call ‘Clement Greenberg School’ of criticism65—has given us a bankrupt esthetics, the eventual exact opposite of what it presumed to champion, insofar as ‘avant garde’ or ‘high art’ itself very quickly devolved into an overwhelming supply of works that were simply de facto decoration (i.e., yes, actual kitsch); and effectively assigned the pivotal task of determining not only ultimate merit but even of de-coding, mediating and delivering superficial content(!) to denizens and habitués of the faculty lounge: ‘the academy’—again, in direct opposition to its original posited aims.

Literary modernism, as it burrowed and percolated down into popular songwriting, unfortunately licensed a whole lot of over-reaching blather. Blather that’s been postured, and surprisingly, generally received, as substantive—eschewing the basic human aspiration for and appreciation of eloquence, which I’ll define as the marriage of precision and fancy, in favor of a thudding obscurantism (e.g. the preponderance of Dylan’s œuvre), be it derived inadvertently via ineptitude, deliberately from pretense, or indifferently through sheer self-indulgence.

And as it is to the critic and to the academic, inarticulate songwriting is also a perfect gift—wrapped in gaudy paper with a big shiny bow—to obsessed fans with time on their hands, eager to smoke out, stumble upon or scare up the most clandestine and convoluted explanations, references and direct personal messages from the lyricist to themselves and the world. Rigorous clarity and coherence in a song obviously doesn’t offer as fertile a field for such ruminations by the amateur modernist—or critic or academic—who perforce revels, even wallows, in the gyrations of the chaotic and inarticulate.

But the twentieth century—with its valuable and distinctive (if often erratic) cultural accomplishments—ended a long time ago, eh? We got it, right?

As I stated at the top of this section, I’m really just ruminating—speculating—on a very large and general cultural question here, but the take does seem to me to be a reasonable assessment of the situation. Yet if precisely accurate or not, I think in 2018 there’s really no reason for the fancies, attitudes and enculturated hallmarks of modernism—or their consonant simulacrums, ’cause it’s one or the other that’s metastasized here—to continue dominant in serious songwriting, an art and craft in which, contrarily, spare precision and direct comprehension are pivotally important. Time to move past and on.

(By the way, this is not to imply that the fashionably hip ‘peremptory kitsch’ and political spinelessness of prevailing post-modernist flippancy and irresponsibility is the necessarily appropriate—or even at all wholly progressive—reaction to modernist bankruptcy. We’ll address that incorrection in a later section.)

The tyranny of postmodernism wears people down with boredom and semi-literate prose. — Christopher Hitchens

Following as we do on a brief look at the deleterious impact of modernism on popular song, and even granting that the premise of the previous section was perhaps as much inquiry as argument, how about a quick commentary on its bastard—better, wayward—progeny: post-modernism? Any imprint on contemporary songwriting?

Let’s ponder a moment....

(I originally thought to label this Section 30-A—rather than Section 31—because to my thinking post-modernism really isn’t even a distinct progressive evolutionary stage in critical thinking at all, but rather simply the grasping-at-any-fucking-available-straws last gasps of modernism itself—superannuated modernism recklessly troweling on way too much makeup.)

Probably the essential component of ‘po-mo criticism’—the primary (though not the only) real-world impact of post-modernism’s application on popular song—is an over-reticence to actually critique; an intellectual insecurity founded on understandable contemporary practical political considerations, focused sensitivities and simple self-awarenesses by which previous generations were typically at best only lightly touched. Modernist criticism felt its way gingerly through historical haze with an often progressive, Marxist-aligned sensibility; po-mo critical exegeses implode into irrelevance. The admirable if easily misguided wish to fully culturally and/or psychologically empathize and respectfully defer (or, in many cases, to simply be in the fellowship that ‘gets it’) breeds an unholy capitulation towards work that is, in fact and by any unencumbered analysis, inferior and self-indulgent—even wholly vacant beyond the merest slip of its igniting precept. In the po-mo world, ’irony’ and (effectively anti-cultural) intellectual timidity finesse all aspiration to objective reality—because a key tenet in post-modernist analyses is that there can never be ‘objective reality’. (Oh, sure, I agree, in the abstract—but then why even try, eh? Let’s all just go home early.)

The progressive effect of po-mo is a definitely heightened sensitivity to the eccentric, the idiosyncratic, the culturally ‘other’ and the economically (and hence, politically) disadvantaged. On balance, good. The concomitant negative effect, however, is divorce from rigorous intellectual esthetic responsibility—which, unfortunately but necessarily, also inadvertently abets the ugly and potent outright destructive impulses rife within basest capitalist (and so-called ‘libertarian’) calculations. It can sometimes help racist, sexist, entitled reactionaries sound almost sane and measured in comparison.

When you encounter an intelligent pop music review or criticism that gets too heavily into the (so to speak) ‘anthropological legitimacy’ of the act in question—concurrently paying at best only scant attention to, effectively making excuses for, or wildly over-praising, the work that the act in fact produces—you’re probably being treated to the contravening paternalist manifestations of laissez-faire post-modern critical ideation.

A difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn’t need music; lyrics do. — Stephen Sondheim

A discussion that can quickly get deep into the woods and choked by the weeds is defining the difference between a song and a poem. Yes, one has music attached to it and the other doesn’t; yes, one is primarily heard and the other primarily read. But I maintain those differences, and others so carefully, thoughtfully delineated by intelligent and perceptive people like Steve Sondheim, above, are actually incidental and after-the-fact.

The determining element isn’t prescriptive or proscriptive at all, but affective. If it works with music—if it is of a piece in presentation—then it is, obviously, a convincing song lyric, no matter what the initial impetus, intention or milieu of the written lines. Period.

And I don’t at all mind being that simple about it; if it seems like an evasion or cop-out, it’s not. Yet to engage and address the matter more definitively, obvious generalizations and both examples and counter-examples can be helpful. So let’s wander about a little.

A song needs to be wholly intelligible on first hearing—if not every word and line, certainly enough of them to induce confidence in the listener that the song merits his or her attention. What music (all of it: melody, rhythm, time signature, arrangement, orchestration and so on) and performance (including production) allow is the ability to highlight those parts of the written presentation that merit focus, and to hide—underplay, audibly obfuscate—those facets which are of lesser moment or craft. I’ve already gone through aspects of this earlier, especially concerning live performance.

But you’re still only going to hear the song on its own terms: how it’s performed, either live or in a recording. Reading a poem, however, obviously allows stopping, going backwards and forwards, re-reading sections on the fly and at whim, digressively researching allusions as they appear, etc.

The fact is that any ostensible differentiation between a song lyric and a poem or other written communication—other than the ex post facto subjective determination of simply whether it works or not—is subordinate, all the way down to the most mechanical and mundane considerations. It’s not necessary that the lines of a song rhyme—occasional well-known songs have no rhyming at all.66 It’s not necessary that a song have a repeated chorus. There is no written-in-stone law requiring a song to last at least, or no more than, any specified length of time. The words used in a song can be just as obscure or specialized as those found in the densest poem. And so on. ALL that matters is whether those words work within the musical setting.

Some years ago, Randy Newman wrote a song called “A Few Words in Defense of Our Country”—which doesn’t so much resemble a traditional song at all as it does a dramatic monolog with underscoring. I’m neither champion nor detractor of the piece itself, but note it as an example of the relaxed frontier between what is and isn’t culturally accepted, defined, as a serviceable, workable song.

Would one, for instance—could one—attempt to set an entire short story to music and thereby create a long song from it? Theoretically, why not? What is an opera or a sung-through musical but pretty much exactly that? And what about a poem read to musical accompaniment—is it now, in fact, a song? How about song lyrics appearing in printed form—are they then, suddenly, no longer a song but a poem? Or how about a song delivered without actual singing but simply spoken? Think way back, to Richard Harris’ vocal delivery of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park”, or most rap songs. Might they be more properly called recorded poetry readings, even though accompanied by music?

Yes, I’m quite aware all these rhetorical questions are obviously very facile, bordering on the downright flippant. But the point of them isn’t.

The considerations that come into play are particular to the specific written lines themselves, and how they can be effectively communicated with music. (Just a gut feeling here, but I expect the Newman effort noted above, prose-like and conversational that it is, might come off as a bit pompous and disjointed if truly sung, and would need to be significantly re-written—altered—to work effectively that way. But that’s just an off-hand intuition, and I may be wrong.)

So, like the Newman effort—or a poetry reading with musical accompaniment—could we simply read, say, O. Henry’s short story, “The Gift of the Magi”, as is, to a specifically composed (or even appropriated) underscoring, and call it a song—albeit a long one, certainly—without being dismissed?

I don’t think so, but not because it’s an impossibility—rather, for pragmatic reasons relating to the specific story.

Adapting a work that already exists into a song is a different exercise from creating a musical piece ground-up, after all. Absolute word-for-word fidelity to the source necessarily becomes of secondary moment, but fidelity to direction and meaning properly remains primary—or what’s the point? So while taking an extant story—our “The Gift of the Magi”, for example—and setting it, word-for-word, might be an interesting dramatic challenge, it’s admittedly extremely unlikely to result in a successful song—or opera, musical or oratorio.

To make it work, we’d first off surely want to edit it for much greater brevity in our adaptation. I expect we’d probably also consider writing it as a duet of two first-person accounts, so the thinking and motivations of the two characters would be revealed directly as the story progresses. (The short story is written entirely in third person, of course—the story is told to us.) And we might consider adding what would become essentially a refrain or short repeating chorus section—perhaps as ‘Greek chorus commentary’ on the entire milieu in which the story is set, to serve as a punctuation of the sections of the story-song as the whole evolves and develops. I’m not married to any of these notions—they’re just suggestions and possibilities—and it’s all admittedly digressive, yet I think helpful.

Similar analytical thinking—analytical guessing, really—goes into setting an extant poem to music, and continues our walk around the question.

Undoubtedly one of the first major poets whose work a songwriter might categorically avoid trying to appropriate, thinking the poems ‘unadaptable into song’ would be T.S. Eliot, no? Read his best-known pieces, and as a songwriter you’re faced with a prickly forest of tangled words, references and disconnected voices. How do ya musicalize that?!? And yet, what about all those songs in the musical Cats? So again, it’s not the source material, it’s the marriage and adaptation—the completed execution—that determines whether there is a workable song.

I do doubt many songs from Cats are truly capable of standing alone outside the context of that overblown and empty theatrical juggernaut, however. The only thing from it one ever hears performed elsewhere is “Memory”, the song in the show least tethered to Eliot’s whimsical poems in his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This despite the fact Cats is one of the two or three most commercially successful stage musicals of all time, and so all the songs generally at least somewhat familiar.

Yet we must admit the rest of the numbers in the musical are, indeed, his poems adapted into songs, eh?

And so what, exactly is the difference between a poem and a song lyric?

In most cases in which an extant poem is adapted into a song, there are adjustments—read: changes—made to the text. The challenge is to do so with such finesse and attention that the editorial work is seamless; of commensurate accomplishment as the original poem—not a bastardization (simply bloating with transient filler, or eviscerating with crippling cuts). If it is done correctly and perhaps displays the best proper deference to the original, only a listener most intimately familiar with the poem might detect the alterations, and in that case one hopes the music is a further positive application, a legitimate justification, for the altered work.67 If it is, we ultimately discover that the poem, having been faithfully adapted and scored, has acquitted itself quite well as a song lyric. Voilà.

It’s interesting that when things go in the other direction, however—when song lyrics are printed—there’s rarely any adjustment made for their new appearance as de facto poetry. They show up simply as a verbatim transcript of what is sung, generally punctuated solely by occasional commas at the end of lines, as if they really are finished poems and have been all along. I think what we’re doing with this, culturally, is effectively acknowledging that song lyrics aren’t meant to be read at all. This is just a transcript and nothing more: simple reportage allowing for the recorded presentation to be more easily followed.

- - -

Okay, I admit it. All we’ve done here is dance around the question—‘dance around it’ because informal conjecture is really all that’s necessary. Look, in the end—as I posited from the very beginning—the pivotal question is simply and solely how the words we’ve appropriated or assembled work in the musical setting, as a song.

So let me close with an observation from the painter Georges Braque: “Once an object has been incorporated into a picture it accepts a new destiny.” Yes. The same with a poem—and with any construction of language—used in a song. The only issue is whether it does, in fact, accept that destiny. Other distinctions between forms are interesting, certainly, but extraneous; merely an academic exercize.

67On one of my albums I adapted a poem written in 1899 by William Butler Yeats to music. And yes, I most certainly (and brazenly?) did add words here and there to his quite well-known poem. But I’ve yet to encounter even one listener, including English professors who teach Yeats, who’s objected to the emendations—or who even seemed to recognize they were there—which perhaps indicates the effort was properly respectful of the source material and esthetically successful. I hope that’s the case.

Section 33

“But it’s POETRY!“—Refuge for the Inarticulate

David Bowie’s songs should be about nothing, because it allows them to be about everything! — Ben Greenman68

But building on forward from the previous section, ‘poetry’ is a word, like ‘artist’ earlier, that we need to de-fang and re-define—well, no, not ‘re-define’, but shake some sense into when it’s used in discussions about songwriting.

Because when a song doesn’t make ready sense—isn’t straight-forward and articulate—someone is bound to come along and helpfully explain “That’s because it’s poetry!” The assertive subtext to the claim is that poetry, by definition, is supposed to mean writing that is arcane, recondite, desultory or convoluted.

As we noted earlier, this refuge is largely a bastard byproduct of literary modernism, which revels in the esoteric. We are effectively expected to defer to the songwriter, accepting without doubt that he, she or they know exactly what they’re doing; his, her or their work has been completed, and now it’s our job to figure it all out. If we can’t do so, it’s probably because we fail to grasp the intricacies and depth of the writing. Surely the writer has succeeded; apparently we have failed.

Communication—the precise, elegant and economical use of words to convey a clear intent, message and direction—is implicated as being inessential, subordinate, even definitive of inferior songwriting.

Compounding the problem is that calling a song lyric ‘poetry’, along with excusing opaqueness, is also supposed to imply elevation. Poetry is asserted to be, also by definition, better than song lyrics—an exalted form to which songwriting aspires.

So we have essentially a vernacular five-step process:

Step One: The song doesn’t make sense.

Step Two: That’s because it’s poetry.

Step Three: Poetry is a higher form of language. Ipso facto, this song is actually a better-written song.

Step Four: Because it is a better-written song, it most certainly does make perfect, elegant, eloquent sense. We must find the key to ‘interpret it properly’. And when we do we’ll recognize its brilliance—even if our solution is labyrinthine, confused or entirely unmoored from what’s actually written. We visited an example of delusional ‘explanations’ attempting to justify outright incompetence earlier, with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. But that song is actually a very straight-forward effort—it’s not at all from the ‘Poetic Lyrics’ school. Here the moronic and obstinately contorted ‘interpretations’ run completely unchecked.

And Step Five: Now that we’ve wholly fabricated a scaffold upon which to hang this danged maundering babble—er, I mean ‘found the golden thread and beautiful tapestry hidden within this patently sublime work’—we can proclaim our job done as well.

And yes, I’m obviously being curmudgeonly and simplistic here, but there’s enough truth to warrant further investigation.

And the epigraph about David Bowie’s songs above is an almost perfect and emblematic reductio ad absurdum distillation of our problem. We’ve actually reached the point where imprecision and confused histrionics aren’t merely shrugged off—or even ostensibly justified via convoluted wild-assed interpretations, as I’ve just illustrated—but celebrated as luminous accomplishment in and of themselves!

“Random collections of words become poetry when they are given meaning. If it means something to a large amount of people, then it is a good poem.”69

The above is an anonymous statement on a comment board that I encountered while preparing this section. ‘Gibberish as genius’, basically—and sadly, it’s a belief that’s actually rather widely accepted in the intellectually insecure times in which we live, leading us in the absolutely wrong direction. Even academics and critics would likely have to agree, as total subscription to such thinking essentially obviates the need for their analyses.

Yes, of course, something that ‘reaches into a collective consciousness’—enjoys catholic comprehension—has meaning. Such is the raison d’être of the most basic employments of language—in road signs, recipes, cliché social greetings, and so forth. But imputed substance—‘meaning’ entirely and individually subjectively manufactured from unstructured and nebulous verbiage, no matter whether in opposition to majority opinion or widely subscribed to—is just wishful thinking.

On the other hand, using plain-spoken language to convey effectively, clearly and concisely, a greater directive, insight or observation—using language that is elegant, economical and eloquent—is fundamentally what the word ‘poetry’ was created to describe, no?

We’ve all seen the occasional article asserting that song lyrics are the New Poetry, or The People’s Poetry, or some such similar. The subtext of all such pieces, really, is that ‘Poetry-With-A-Capital-P’ has been, up to recently and this article alerting us to the change, a higher art than song lyrics—but now, suddenly, song lyrics are poetry. Song lyrics have ascended into the Higher Realm.

Such opinion pieces have been appearing for decades—you’ve seen them and so have I. Much of the article will initially concern itself with the mechanics of song lyrics—citing inventive uses of rhyme, in particular—and how that therefore requires us to at least allow the possible legitimacy of the basic argument. It’ll then go on to support the notion by citing this and that lyric line in this or that song to substantiate the purported depth that’s now being achieved in song lyrics.

The big Achilles Heel of these articles is that left entirely unaddressed is any qualitative statement on poetry itself—recognition that there is such a thing as bad poems; poorly written versification, doggerel.

So here again, we’re faced with two compounding and equally meretricious tendencies. The first is the compliant lionization of something posited to be Poetry as therefore intrinsically meritorious. The second is that because song lyrics—some song lyrics—are Poetry, that those thus-cloaked lyrics are also necessarily meritorious and deserving of deference.

Folks, there’s a whole lot of bad poetry out there—insubstantial (essentially unnecessary or trivial) information, sans potentially salvaging resonant expression, available and delivered to us categorized as poems. (I’m not arguing whether something qualifies as a Poem; rather whether something qualifies as Worthy of Our Time.) What’s regularly encountered in recent years is a free verse exposition of a minor observation or interpersonal transaction, reported in mundane manner, typographically versified and presented as poetry. It’s writing that properly qualifies as ‘prosaic’ in more ways than one. I don’t mean to be too hard on casual reflection—or what might be called ‘dinner party anecdotes’—but so much really is just slender ephemera. Formatting it for the page and then calling it poetry doesn’t make it significant—and even if it is, that obviously wouldn’t necessarily mean it’s significant and well-written.

In songwriting, on the other end but similarly, just because it has a title, a melody and gets sung in public doesn’t mean it’s good writing either—especially if the lyrics do not clearly convey recognizable, discernable and resonant information. In the first sections of this manifesto we looked at some songs that were examples of bad writing, and if we were to call them poetry, that wouldn’t suddenly make them good writing either.

And this still doesn’t address ‘word salad poetry’—those disjointed word jumbles often found in free verse efforts and pseudo-Beat poems—and in songwriting efforts like Lennon’s “Come Together” or many of those Bowie songs, Dylan songs and similar.

In songwriting, especially—because songs appear in specific time (as opposed to poetry on the page, which allows one to luxuriate in reflection and study)—plain speaking is not only not inimical to depth, it’s mandated. It’s when clear and precise language introduces ideas, locutions, insights or even jokes that are revelatory that use of the adjective ‘poetic’ when describing a song is fully and properly warranted. That’s why, for instance, some great blues and folk songs can be rightly called poetic; while so many celebrated popular songs, awash in turbulence and diffusion, are simply twaddle—confused twaddle.

Inarticulate convolutions are not what defines poetry. Rambling imprecision—no matter how pleasing the melody or at how many decibels it’s blasted—isn’t poetic at all. Indeed, it’s the exact opposite of poetic—and of what comprises good poetry, and good songwriting.

So let’s be wary of the exalted and misbegotten characterization of a song as ‘poetry’, and celebrate writing that is elegant, economical, eloquent—writing that is truly poetic in that it reveals, evokes and steers our thoughts into new appreciations, considerations and re-considerations without first requiring us to cobble together a wholly unlikely, subjectively individualized and fanciful ‘interpretation’. The songwriter’s job is to communicate, and to do so lucidly and productively.

A song can come to us wrapped with a gorgeous melody, sitting in a groove that’s absolutely irresistible and sung in perfect six-part harmony by A Choir of Honest-To-God Angels Flown in from Heaven—but if all we’re gonna get from the effort is pedestrian inanities or incoherent pomposities, who really cares?

Sincerity is not depth.

While we each surely invest deeply in the overarching ambitions, deep disappointments, joyful accomplishments, major incidents or unusual sightings we’ve ourselves experienced—or that someone we personally know has experienced—those sentiments are not necessarily gonna be worth anyone else’s attention.

If—and a big, big ‘if’ it is, too—the lessons realized from those events can bring new insight, awareness or even laughter to people not intimately involved, and they can be presented in language and manner eloquent enough that it demands legitimate attention, then they may perhaps be worthy of conveying to others in song.

Otherwise, however, best to limit reporting on those life-changing experiences to mom. Or to a best friend, therapist, drinking pal, parole officer, psychiatrist, town gossip, cell mate, campaign manager or significant other. The rest of us probably aren’t really interested—or even all that curious, frankly. No one is being done a favor by having emotional banalities or pseudo-intellectual bombast written up and sung to them in an original song—and it’s the height of egotism to presume differently.

Yes, I’m possibly much too severe here. But a song is a monolog, after all—a lecture, a speech, an incursion, a very one-sided event. It’s a literal demand that other people passively listen to what the songwriter or performer has to say—and then applaud it all at the end.

And we each do have something to say, naturally. But in truth, we don’t often have something to say that’s worth hearing presented in an extended monolog.

Showmanship certainly helps. It diverts, distracts, enables and can even dazzle; yet no matter how accomplished, showmanship is still ultimately just packaging.

I don’t really think we need to expand on the subject any further here, so let’s move on. But because of its importance, and because we’ll refer back to it again later, let’s move on after repeating the admonition yet one more time:

Sincerity Is Not Depth.

Section 35

The Kids Are Alright!

Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was captive in a hostile world of adults. — Gore Vidal

An ostensibly axiomatic argument regularly paraded out in defense of unsophistication, of puerility, of fatuousness, in popular songs—particularly rock songs—is that they’re so often Written by And/Or Meant for Young People. And therefore, case closed.

I reject both the formulation and the principle. Unless we’re talking about literal pre-school age children here (say, six year olds and younger) the assertion is in fact plain old adult condescension writ large—and, more pertinently and poisonously, a bogus justification for second-rate work.

In many areas of entertainment, the wise direction given is to ‘treat young people as you would adults—they don’t need to be talked down to’. In popular songwriting however, limited vocabularies, lack of actual wit, insufferable misogyny, repetitive vapidities and preposterous swagger are de rigueur features, defended with a shrug as inherent to the form—just a part of the ‘world of youth culture’—and then marketed to younger people with unrestrained freight-train determination.

I don’t buy it. The cultural dialectic has actually never been literally one of youth versus age, but rather of intelligence versus stupidity; creative inspiration and revolution facing off against convention and atrophy.

There’s no doubt maturation, the simple lengthening existence in the culture and society—more years on Earth—does allow each of us to become more confident in our intuitions and intelligence, refine our sensibilities and grow out of the more self-absorbed and insecure vestiges of youth. That’s exactly what transpired in my own evolved reactions to songs and acts pushed on me by the record industry early on, as recounted in Section 4 earlier.

Smart kids can and do appreciate what smart grown-ups appreciate; dumb adults champion the same crap the dumb kids champion. There are superficial generational differences—in slang vocabularies and technical jargon, for instance—but they are, indeed, mostly subordinate and ancillary. And there’ll always be youthful assertions of independence from, and so a necessarily postured antipathy towards, art found meritorious by one’s immediate antecedents. But such is, indeed, more posture than actuality.

Let’s pause just a second to allow the late critic Lester Bangs to offer some insight on the true and much, much larger imperative at work here:

The essential misapprehension about popular music is that it is anything other than a totally capitalistic enterprise. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything except making money and getting rich.70

Yes, indeed. The low-rent cynicism and marketing calculations of the recording/broadcasting industry exploits and profits mightily from the dumbing down of popular music, that dumbing down used as a wedge to separate and isolate an entire continually incipient (and so understandably insecure) market: teenagers and younger adults who’re told this is their music, these are their songs; songs they should all rally ’round—and BUY! A further benefit from that schema is the concomitant focus on fast turnaround, production and marketing—quicker and bigger pay-offs—in opposition to substantive statement and actual cultural advance. After all, once the general formulas have been mastered, and an entire ever-replenishing sub-population indoctrinated with and enlisted in a generational ‘us vs them’ dogma, it’s not as difficult to manufacture yet more and more disposable reinforcing detritus—and successively interchangeable acts performing it—for that targeted demographic. The money keeps rolling in.

But corporate popular music is very much not a place to seek true revolutionary (read: anti-authoritarian, pro-humanist, anti-capitalist) heroes.71

Posturing? Yes, Yes, YES. Tons and tons of it!

Actuality? Not much.

On that aspect, let’s expand to also note that while it’s an obvious fact new eyes can bring reappraisal and innovation to any entrenched endeavor, this has nothing to do with some imagined and strictly confined ‘youth vs age’ contest. Those ‘new eyes’ can just as easily be those of actors arriving from outside the locally prevailing culture generally or simply from participants already within the majority population newly introduced to the specific discipline itself—or even derive, albeit with extreme rarity, from an experienced inside practitioner’s Damascus Road conversion.

So now...case closed.

70All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music by Tony Palmer (New York: Grossman Publishers/Viking Press, 1976), 287

71Much of their manager Malcolm McLaren’s tedious machinations aside, the Sex Pistols’ persistent intense slugfests with the record industry and attendant media—through even to their outright (and one must presume sincere) contempt for the band’s attempted usurpation by the sanctimonious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame decades after their international rise—is an admittedly very-far-from-perfect yet high-profile illustration of what actual confrontation with the establishment begets.

Section 36

La-Da-Da-Da / Na-Na-Na-Na / Lie-La-Lie, Lie-La-Lie / Sha-La-Ti-Da

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept. — Ansel Adams

As we begin turning our attention back to analyzing specific song examples, a quick look at what’s technically termed ‘non-lexical vocables’ is in order here. As the section subhead above indicates, non-lexical vocables (we’ll abbreviate them as NLVs) are vocal sounds of all types that aren’t actual words—so not just ‘La-La-La’, but the comparable nonsense syllables found famously (or perhaps infamously?) in the long appendage and fade-out of Paul McCartney’s “Hey Jude” and the chorus of Paul Simon’s “The Boxer”; in scat singing, whistling, cowboy yodeling, cheap Disney claptrap like “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” and “Chim-Chim-Cher-ee”—even a throw-away sigh, growl or similar—and so on. In some sub-genres of popular song they’re a major, even definitive, component (e.g., doo-wop; or again, yodeling in cowboy songs).

There are so many different possibilities for use of such sounds in a song that I hesitate to make a blanket assessment—this is an area in which there are going to be wide variations in employment and significant exceptions in value of that employment. An act like the Swingle Singers, for instance, or Bobby McFerrin, exist as brilliant exemplars of what the human voice can do when invoked solely as a musical instrument bereft of responsibility to convey shaded rhetorical objectives.

And there’s countless traditional songs in which the entire refrain or entire chorus is nothing but NLVs; as well as whole genres of songs, in cultures spread around the world, that are constructed of essentially nothing but NLVs. They will serve a percussive, punctuating or intentionally lyrically unimportant space-filling function.

Given all the above, however, some general observations are surely appropriate here. And I think, while being open to multiple exceptions, we can offer that rarely—very rarely—can NLVs be justified within a song the remainder of which is presented as a serious or substantive effort at linguistic communication. A little of this kinda thing goes a long, long way.

I wonder if that’s not because using the human voice in the service of absolutely and assertively not transmitting identifiable information can seem to be a.) a cavalier contempt by the songwriter for the effort at communication generally, and/or b.) an admission that the songwriter was simply phoning it in at this juncture, treading water, resigned to being drained of ideas with space yet to fill, and/or c.) a signal to listeners that the words in this song—in this part of it, certainly, but possibly all the rest of it as well—really aren’t that important after all. Though perhaps seeming innocuous, NLVs can be a virulent menace to a serious effort. A failure of songwriting.

Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” is a perhaps particularly noteworthy exception here. Before starting in on each verse, he hums the single note on which the first word of that verse begins, for several beats. Because the novelty is so underplayed it avoids being an intrusion on the substance of the song and becomes, instead, a unique and entirely engaging appliance. Rare.

On the other hand, yes, occasionally a guttural wail or similar may be a legitimately indicated cri de cœur in the context of a song that deals, for example, with profound emotional distress or longing; a sigh can underscore a wistful resignation, longing or remembrance; and etcetera.

I addressed the absurd use of NLVs in the chorus of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” earlier. And while Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” isn’t likely to be something leaping into mind were we asked to suggest a ‘serious song’, he at least sets up—legitimizes—his ‘Sha-la-la-las’ in his chorus there; deploying his NLVs as stand-ins for (presumably forgotten?) actual lyrics within the context of the song, or as the self-aware youthful nonsense they otherwise are:

Morrison may intrinsically somewhat justify his chorus here, but to my ears the song still and clearly drops several levels in accomplishment with the descent into nonsense vocables so highlighted and integral to it. And as we’ll see in a later section, even ostensibly validating NLVs by slyly introducing them en masse as a long coda just to fill out the time and to perhaps afford reflection on preceding information—or as a kinda ‘universal song code’, the precise lyrics of which are immaterial—does not, ipso facto, support using them.

This stuff is like playing with fire.

72“Brown Eyed Girl”, copyright 1967 by Van Morrison. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 37

So is “The Folk Process” An Expired Mechanism?

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

To answer the question in the subhead above: no, ‘The Folk Process’, certainly in its loosest and most general connotations, isn’t an expired mechanism; not at all. Songs certainly do change—all the time. Every time a new act covers an extant song the argument can be made that a de facto (if not literal) contemporary manifestation of the folk process is taking place—the new rendition is a continuation of the creation of the song (though the harness and restraint of enforceable copyright restricts most changes to being superficial.)

But a more strictly defined folk process also continues, even in this age of the internet with all its offered accesses and protections. I’ve been part of it myself, and perhaps you have as well.

For example, here’s a song written by Furry Lewis, which he recorded in 1928.73 It’s the first song I ever learned to play (although then in a very, very simplified form, naturally) called “I Will Turn Your Money Green”, also sometimes known as “Follow Me Baby”, or by the title I learned it as, “Rockefeller Blues”.

When I was in Missouri, they would not let me be.
When I was in Missouri, they would not let me be.
Wouldn’t rest content till I came to Tennessee.

If the river was whiskey and baby I was a duck,
If the river was whiskey and baby I was a duck,
I’d dive to the bottom, Lord, and I’d never come up.

Lord the woman I hate, I see her every day.
Lord the woman I hate, I see her every day.
But the woman I love—she’s so far away.

Talk about sweetheart; I declare I’m a honest man.
Talk about sweetheart; I declare I’m a honest man.
Give my woman so many dollars, it broke her apron string.

All she give me was trouble; trouble all the time.
All she give me was trouble; trouble all the time.
I been troubled so long that trouble don’t worry my mind.

I been down so long it seems like up to me.
I been down so long it seems like up to me.
The woman I love; she done quit poor me.

What’s the need of me hollering; what’s the need of me crying?
What’s the need of me hollering; what’s the need of me crying?
The woman I love, she don’t pay me no mind.74

I learned the song from Jacksonville, Florida, blues player M.L. Riley, who got it directly from Furry Lewis years previously. I didn’t hear Lewis’ own rendition of the song until many, many years later—and by then the song I was performing, musically, was about ten light-years removed from his original. The lyrics—while still certainly recognizable—had also evolved. There were entire verses I had never heard—and others I’d heard when learning the song so long ago, but decided not to incorporate and subsequently just forgot. The lyrics and the order in which I presently perform the song go like this:

This is obviously a much simpler song—reduced—than what Furry Lewis performed (or what M.L. Riley probably taught me). And I honestly can’t recall how I got to where I am with the song today: the twists, turns and inadvertent variations that got set in concrete—until the next inadvertent variation, and so on.

You may also note that it structurally resembles my version of “The Cuckoo”, mentioned earlier—‘title verse’ first and last; with three verses in between them in “The Cuckoo”, two in “Rockefeller Blues”. (In both songs, I also add in instrumental sections—instrumental verses and improvised bridges.)

And while I would’ve been far too insecure and innocent to say so then, the fact of the matter is that even at the time I must have intuitively recognized there were too many elements—verses with quite disparate, unconnected concerns—to easily hold together within a cohesive song. And so I took what I particularly liked and could scavenge to make, in my view, a workable lyrical whole. (Going for ‘serious’ meant I had to sadly eschew the thoroughly entertaining ‘If the river was whiskey and I was a duck’ verse, but so be it.)

Rigid folk purists will claim at this point, with supreme indignation, that Lewis’ song was already a brilliant, cohesive whole—and who the hell was I to presumptuously, promiscuously tamper with it!

But any such preconceptions on the matter are simply wrong—and wrong-headed. Furry Lewis’ original work is enjoyable, engaging—and an important piece of American folk culture. He wrote and composed some really good stuff in the song. But there is no obligation to simply mimic his guitar arrangement, to sing all the verses he sang, or to do them in the same order. Full stop.

On the musical side, and as noted above, while still a basic 12-bar blues construction, the song I’ve played over the years began to differ from Furry Lewis’ composition from the outset—then simply due to my newness to the guitar—and it continued and continues to diverge and evolve as years pass, having less and less resemblance to his original.

But of course I always credit the song to Furry Lewis, no matter how far it’s journeyed and evolved.

And that, friends, is the real ‘folk process’ at work.

73Walter “Furry” Lewis (1893–1981) was a singular fellow. Musician by night, when the irregular opportunity arose; professional street sweeper for the City of Memphis by day—as he was damned well intent on never being completely broke, and absolutely determined to get a pension when he reached retirement age. Joni Mitchell wrote a song about him called “Furry Sings the Blues”—and while most folks might’ve been touched, even proud, to have a song written about them lauding their abilities, it got Lewis angry, as he didn’t like someone making money using his name without getting a share.

74“I Will Turn Your Money Green”, copyright 1928 by Furry Lewis. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 38

The Transcendent Lessons of Browne’s “These Days” and Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee”—Albeit ‘Transcendent Lessons’ Both Positive and Negative

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. — Michelangelo Buonarroti

Now, finally, let’s get back to examining some examples of both good and bad songwriting. We’ll begin with two songs—and again, songs surely known to most readers—each of which demonstrates both exemplary and mediocre work in the very same piece.

- - -

One of Jackson Browne’s signature efforts, a song he reportedly wrote while still a teenager(!), called “These Days”, is particularly noteworthy in that it contains an example of outright lyrical brilliance—directly adjacent to an example of self-satisfied cleverness; a feeble and lead-footed masquerade of brilliance.

Of notable interest here is that Browne has himself changed the lyrics to this song several times in subsequent years—presumably aware of its deficiencies and attempting to arrive at a less self-conscious and more coherent effort.

Here’s the song—in its entirety. Lyrics that were later tossed by him are crossed out; and new, additional or replacement lines are underscored:

I’ve been out walkin’;
I don’t do too much talkin’ these days.
These days—
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do for you;
And all the times I had the chance to.

I stopped my ramblin’.
I don’t do too much gamblin’ these days.
These days
These days I seem to think about
How all the changes came about my way;
And I wonder if I’ll see another highway

And I had a lover.
I don’t think I’ll risk another these days—
These days.
And if I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song,
Well it’s just ’cause I’ve been losing so long.

Well I’ll stop my dreamin’;
I don’t do too much schemin’ these days.I’ll keep on moving;
Things are bound to be improving these days.
These days—
These days I’ll sit on cornerstones
And count the time in quartertones to ten, my friend.
Please don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them.75, 76

The rhyme scheme that Browne built for himself, with its interior rhymes and enjambments—in a song that attempts to be a profound and soul-searching evocation—is almost antithetical to that grasp for sincerity; a little too structurally sophisticated. (Again, however, one might remember, kindly, that he was just a teenager when he wrote the first version—and like all of us at that age he evinced the tendency of trying a little too hard to impress.) Maintaining the demanding rhyme scheme, the tightness, without causing eye-rolling in his audience by simply ‘going for whatever rhymes’ is a very difficult tightrope to walk—but he generally, eventually, arrived at a fully and capably realized piece.

It’s the final four lines I’d like to quickly focus on here—look them over again, above. The first two of the four are, indeed, of the eye-rolling variety. Sure, ‘quartertones’ and ‘cornerstones’ obviously rhyme, but it’s an utterly meaningless goulash of words. You “count the time in quartertones”, Jackson? (What does that even mean?) “Sitting on cornerstones”? (What does THAT mean as well—and how, exactly do you do it? A cornerstone is a foundation stone—so with a wall of bricks already sitting on it. And you apparently only sit on cornerstones, yes? No? Why specify them?) And what importance or pertinence does counting ‘to ten’ have to do with anything—beyond the mechanical (in that it arbitrarily sets up the slant-rhyme of the word ‘them’ which ends the next line)? Gimme a break. This is cleverness for its own sake—cleverness without substance or justification beyond puerile smugness. The added “my friend”—as contrasted to the “for you” at the same point in the first verse, which does contribute value there—adds nothing here; and because it adds nothing smacks, really, of a too-easy grasp to simply chalk up one more rhyme, a cheap one at that, just for the hell of it. (But I’ll admit, sympathetically, that this can be a hard temptation to resist—especially in a song like this, so interlaced throughout with rhyme.)

The two lines following, however—the final two lines of the song—are of an entirely different magnitude of proficiency. “Don’t confront me with my failures; I had not forgotten them” is simply brilliant stuff—reaching deep into each of us who hears it. I want to go further here, to underscore the powerful insight he brings forward. Were I myself to have written it, I’m sure I’d have written “Don’t remind me of my failures....”—so ‘remind’ instead of ‘confront’; and a much less effective or efficient use of language than what Browne comes up with. Why? Well, the reference to memory is nailed just a few words later, with ‘forgotten’—so using ‘remind’ here is a waste of two syllables in his set-up to what concludes both this verse and the whole song—syllables that he instead brilliantly allocates to the word ‘confront’, which adds to the line the implication of uncertain, unsettled, contestation.

What we have are two textbook lessons in those four lines—one on exactly what not to do, immediately followed by one displaying what a flash of real brilliance can deliver. Whether one buys the finished song or not—and I myself am somewhat ambivalent, beyond simply gagging at the ‘cornerstones / quartertones’ house of cards. Good that he discarded the original second verse—which was pretty much just aimless prattle—but the remaining now-second verse still strikes me as overly self-referential. Perhaps I’m too demanding. But I also suggest the song’s final line would be improved slightly by replacing ‘I had’ with ‘I’ve’. It would a.) provide better scansion, b.) sing a bit better, and by far most pertinently c.) make the statement more directly immediate.

Yet those final two lines remain unequivocally terrific, and the whole song a generally smart piece, particularly given the challenging structural confines he set for himself.

- - -

Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” is another song in which one finds some outstanding en passant statements—lyric lines which make the listener cock his or her head in startled appreciation.
The song:77

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, headin’ for the trains,
Feelin’ nearly faded as my jeans.
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained,
Took us all the way to New Orleans.
Took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
And was blowin’ sad while Bobby sang the blues.
With them windshield wipers slappin’ time and
Bobby clappin’ hands we finally sang up every song
that driver knew.

chorus:

Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose,
And nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free.
Feelin’ good was easy, Lord, when Bobby sang the blues;
And buddy, that was good enough for me—
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

From the coalmines of Kentucky to the California sun,
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul.
Standin’ right beside me through everythin’ I done,
And every night she kept me from the cold.
Then somewhere near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away—
She was lookin’ for the love I hope she’ll find.
Well I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday,
Holdin’ Bobby’s body close to mine.

chorus repeat78

Wistful sentiment aside—and I think Kristofferson got most all the immediate resonance into the song that he could’ve wanted—there are components of it which are rather simple; achieved without much difficulty. When a place name is used in a song, unless the place has a specific necessary reason to be cited, it’s usually invoked simply to rhyme another word—the word the lyricist is covetously aiming to use—to be rhymed, in other words, so that the desired important thought can be delivered. Alternatively, sometimes it’s simply another ‘bit of color’ to add into the lyrics, and it’s chosen primarily for its romance, or simply its sonority. So the lines with Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Kentucky, Salinas—even California, though this last proper noun serves the additional value of being an adjective to ‘sun’—are all pretty easily arrived at. (He could just as readily have written, for example, “From the mines of Pennsylvania [or ‘the canyons of Manhattan’] to the Arizona sun....”—there’s lots that could easily and competently fill out this space. But his primary objective was to simply set up the stronger “Standin’ right beside me through everythin’ I done, and every night she kept me from the cold.”)

The above observations are secondary, however, and obviously also open to debate, one by one. What is primary, and incontestably impressive, is the chorus. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”—immediately followed by “nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ if it’s free”—a quick and powerful one-two punch straight to the gut. The point he’s making comes across immediately, but the lines are so evocative and so resonant that they deserve—demand—being repeated to oneself over and over again long after the song has ended. This is great songwriting. And yes, it is truly poetic.

Kris, you’ve done really good job. So take a deep breath here, okay? If you can’t add yet more colorful story or another layer of resonance to the song—and it’s really, really quite good just as it is—can we just stop here?

It’s just that I’m a little apprehensive about what might follow if we don’t.

Aw, damn, I was afraid of something like this.

Because now we’re suddenly into the dreadfully affected and over-the-top ‘la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la’ ostensibly workable substitute for an actual third verse—which Janis Joplin belches out in the best-known edition of the song but which (in her possible defense?) just follows the template provided by the very first recorded performance of it, sung by Roger Miller, albeit far less overbearingly. And, naturally, it turns the song into a sing-along mockery. (Kristofferson himself didn’t first record the song until a year after Miller, and I wasn’t able to ascertain if Kristofferson himself regularly stretched things out with the whole ‘la-la-la’ verse before it got to Miller for recording. So where the appendage originated is unknown to me.) In any event, the whole contrivance tells us the preceding picaresque travelogue and the moving emotional evocations was just a lightweight song—a pop ditty. It gives us a big fat middle finger for being so gullible, for believing in what we’ve just heard. Nothing to see here—move along, dummies, nothing to take seriously or to heart.

I expect a songwriter with Kristofferson’s genuine gifts—not a lot of his stuff is great, but when he’s on, he is ON—could write an actual third verse to this song and hit the whole thing outa the park. But it was written at a time when Nashville country songs were, in my memory certainly, getting shorter and shorter—shorter even than the 2:45 median length then current in radio-friendly pop and rock songs—and so one often encountered country radio songs of ‘two verses with the chorus after each, and out’. (Yet even mainstream Nashville performer Roger Miller added that third verse of non-lexical vocables, so there must have been a general ‘industrial preference’ for this song to be longer, no? Why isn’t it? Because there’s an abnegation of responsibility, a failure of songwriting, when the only alternative considered—well, the one arrived at—is ‘la-la-la-la-la’.)

How should one deal with a song that feels—or even inarguably is—‘too short’ for the magnitude of the ideas and presentation so far provided, and would be disserviced by tacking on a lot of nonsense? Simple, really. There’s two primary components of a song: the lyrics and the melody—the music. Going out of “Me and Bobby McGee” instrumentally would have been an easy, secure—and satisfying—culmination to some brilliant songwriting. And whether one agrees about that choice or not, it certainly beats the hell outa having the reflective raconteur go into idiotic ‘la-la-la-la-la’s.

But another, much better suggestion is to insert an additional verse—a new second verse, making the present one third, as that one does serve as a solid lament and summation of precedent events and experiences—which takes a different look at what’s available within the established context and content. Perhaps a reflection on the America the two footloose protagonists find before them—an expansive take on the people and land they encounter and from which they learn as they grow and experience? (In such scenario, one might presumably utilize a rather standard organization of verse 1, verse 2, THEN the chorus, short instrumental bridge, verse 3, repeat chorus and out; and so making a song lasting somewhere around 3:00 to 3:30—WITHOUT inane sing-along.)

As is, we end with a piece of really great songwriting, with its horse shot right out from under it mid-stream—crippled (forcibly drowned) by inadequate application or thought. Or was it perhaps by plain lack of competent and sensitive oversight in the production studio and corporate offices? One must presume Kristofferson was satisfied with the song we know, but did he have an additional verse he for some reason discarded or failed to complete? (In that case, it’s time to re-write it rather than go with less—the great song, extant, is a magnificent opportunity for amplification or augmentation. There’s very little chance here of spoiling it with elaboration. We know barely anything, really, about the two protagonists, and our curiosity has been ignited.)

Or was it maybe just offhand carelessness? Laziness? Who knows.

75Greg Allman, who many years after it was written had a pop hit with the “These Days”, changed the last line to “I’m aware of them”, which I don’t think is as strong as “I had not forgotten them” (or my preferred “I’ve not forgotten them”). In the latter two, the admission of awareness is there as well—but to my ears with the added implication of these particular failures having produced a still-smarting sting, and lingering regret, that time can’t alleviate. “I’m aware of them” strikes as somewhat argumentative, mitigating our sympathy.

76“These Days”, copyright 1967 by Jackson Browne. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

77The lyrics here are Kristofferson’s original lines as I’ve been able to ascertain them. In Janis Joplin’s much better-known recording, a few words were replaced by new ones. In my opinion, the changes actually resulted in a small net plus for the song.

78“Me and Bobby McGee”, copyright 1969 by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 39

Well How ’Bout That, Some Country Music IS...

...three chords and the truth! — Harlan Howard

As noted earlier, the One Great Convention which advantages country music over so much in rock and rap is that the lyrics in Nashville songs are intended, and expected by the audience, to be fully, unequivocally comprehended. The writing may be low grade hack work—and just as in rock and rap, it most often surely is—but dammit, yer gonna UNDERSTAND it! ‘Poetic Lyrics’ rarely appear in a song intended for a country listenership. Yet though it’s unusual to encounter country songs that merit legitimate praise, such of course do and have existed. What’s interesting is that most all of the songs I’ll mention below, when they came out, were played on country radio stations and appeared on the country music charts—but TODAY, unless rendered by an already established major act and so benefiting from major commercial push (which in some of the cases below, is exactly what transpired back when as well) would much more reasonably be expected to be considered ‘Americana’ rather than ‘country’. These are songs which aren’t yer usual bombastic Nashville garbage. I defy anyone with any popular music preferences—heavy metal, Broadway, rap, bluegrass, you-name-it—to not be reached and affected by at least one or more of the following, songs the origins of which are spread out over most of the last century: “Down The Old Road to Home” (songwriter Jimmie Rodgers, 1932), “El Paso” (Marty Robbins, 1959), “California Cotton Fields” (Dallas Frazier and Earl Montgomery, 1971), ”The Gambler” (Don Schlitz, 1978), “The Dance” (Tony Arata, 1988), or “Travelin’ Soldier” (Bruce Robison, 1996). These are story-songs, metaphors, socio-political laments, personal reflections, simple soliloquies; but all expertly crafted and with both what passes as honest self-awareness and genuine insights. Not one relies on Dylanesque posturing and pseudo-modernist ‘it’s your job to interpret it and make it make sense’ affectations. They’re songs, in other words, that—among more universal accomplishments—should inspire all songwriters to attempt to achieve similarly brilliant results.

Let’s look a few of those mentioned above—going through them all would take too much time and space here. But no matter how familiar one may be with any or all, I urge readers to give a close listen to each once again. Please.

- - -

The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir often freely reported that “El Paso” was the band’s ‘most requested song’—a remarkable allowance insofar as while properly emphasizing the strength of the songwriting in “El Paso” it also inadvertently admits to the across-the-board insignificance of the band’s own ground-up creations, particularly insofar as the rabid audience for this particular act might reasonably have been expected to be more open to the ostensibly ‘poetic’ and less prosaic lyrics in the band’s original material, and to obviously know that material intimately.79 Further, the Dead’s performances of “El Paso” were nothing to brag about—click around and find one—so, no, it wasn’t the presentation that made it so loved by their audiences. The Dead’s “El Paso” was really just Weir doing a creditable Open Mic Night rendition, loosely accompanied by the rest of the band, and nothing more. What makes it work is, indeed, that it’s simply a brilliantly written song—even stripped of Grady Martin’s stunningly nonesuch lead guitar work on Robbins’ original recording.

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso,
I fell in love with a Mexican girl.
Nighttime would find me in Rosa’s cantina;
Music would play and Felina would whirl.

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina;
Wicked and evil while casting a spell.
My love was deep for this Mexican maiden;
I was in love, but in vain I could tell.

One night a wild young cowboy came in—
Wild as the West Texas wind.
Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing
With wicked Felina, the girl that I loved.

So in anger I challenged his right for the love of this maiden;
Down went his hand for the gun that he wore.
My challenge was answered in less than a heartbeat;
The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.

Just for a moment I stood there in silence,
Shocked by the foul evil deed I had done.
Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there—
I had but one chance and that was to run.

Out through the back door of Rosa’s I ran;
Out where the horses were tied.
I caught a good one, it looked like it could run;
Up on its back and away I did ride—

Just as fast as I could from the West Texas town of El Paso,
Out to the badlands of New Mexico.
Back in El Paso my life would be worthless;
Everything’s gone in life; nothing is left.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen the young maiden.
My love is stronger than my fear of death.

I saddled up and away I did go
Riding alone in the dark.
Maybe tomorrow a bullet may find me;
Tonight nothing’s worse than this pain in my heart.

And at last here I am on the hill overlooking El Paso;
I can see Rosa’s Cantina below.
My love is strong and it pushes me onward;
Down off the hill to Felina I go.

Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys;
Off to my left ride a dozen or more.
Shouting and shooting, I can’t let them catch me;
I have to make it to Rosa’s back door.

Something is dreadfully wrong, for I feel
A deep burning pain in my side.
Though I am trying to stay in the saddle,
I’m getting weary, unable to ride.

But my love for Felina is strong and I rise where I’ve fallen;
Though I am weary, I can’t stop to rest.
I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle;
I feel the bullet go deep in my chest.

From out of nowhere Felina has found me
Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side.
Cradled by two loving arms that I’ll die for;
One little kiss, then Felina good-bye.80

“El Paso” is so well constructed and so well written that there’s really very little that can be negatively criticized—it must simply be held up and admired for the dazzling work it most certainly is. Especially noteworthy, perhaps, is that the first two-thirds of the song is told in past tense—it’s all backstory, not even truly within compact time-line of now, as we have no idea how long he’s been gone from El Paso. When he returns we’re suddenly thrown into the very midst of the real-time cataclysmic climax. And the last line is told—presumably and incredibly, because from where else could it arrive—from beyond the grave! Well, the next world, anyway, or the precise moment of death—so he’s gone but ain’t yet buried. (Even the great song, “Green, Grass of Home”, by Curly Putman in 1964, stops short of actually addressing us from after death—the raconteur instead singing to us in solemn acceptance of its impending arrival—and I doubt that song could’ve gotten away with it.) Talk about finality. And is there anyone—any listener—who doesn’t buy it?

And, of course, there’s the obvious additional uncertainty of whether Felina does actually arrive or if she’s the imagined wish fulfillment—the phantasmagoria—of a dying man; in a slant repurchase of Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”.

Yep, that’s all that need be taken apart here, as we respectfully take a few steps back to look and listen. “El Paso” is incontestably and monumentally brilliant work—work that will most assuredly stand the test of time. Obviously on far lesser scale of overall or sustained achievement; but of commensurate creative inspiration as The Iliad or The Odyssey.

- - -

Another great piece of writing—and really quite simple; not at all overly ambitious—is “Down the Old Road to Home”, written now almost a century ago:

Dear, I’m thinking of you while here all alone;
I’m wishing and longing for you and for home.
I’d give this whole world if I could only say,
“I’m climbing that hill, headed that way.”

chorus:

For I’m lonesome and blue for some place to roam;
And I wish it could be down that old road to home.

With a troubled mind and a heart full of pain,
I’ve searched the whole world for fortune and fame.
But I’m longing to be with you once again,
So we could stroll down old memory lane.

chorus repeat

There’s a little red house on top of a hill,
Not very far from an old syrup mill.
And I’d give this world if I could only say,
“I’m climbing that hill, headed that way.”

chorus repeat81

Jimmie Rodgers’ songwriting here, unassuming as it is, captures all that needs be said about being away from home—and, I unhesitatingly assert, it is that unassuming simplicity that touches us. While the writing flirts tenuously close to corny clichés, I think we’re inclined to indulge them within the forlorn resonance and definite overall depth. While I often admire Paul Simon’s songwriting, his very similarly inclined “Homeward Bound”, so much more elevated and precise than Rodgers’ effort here, to my ears doesn’t reach the same level of emotional pull this simple song evokes in a listener—and “Homeward Bound” is by no means an insignificant piece of work.

The argument has been presented to me that it is Rodgers’ recorded performance that makes the song resonate, not the actual lyrics (which, in the same argument, are intrinsically overly sentimental and ripe). While there are certainly superior and inferior fits of any specific song to particular performer, I remain unconvinced that a seriously invested rendering of “Down the Old Road to Home”—by a capable vocalist—would strike a sophisticated and intelligent listener as false or lesser work. It’s just that good. (In fact, there is one thing that Rodgers adds into his recorded performance—yodeling—that does detract from the effort. You have to have some sympathy for him—and he’s indeed a creditable yodeler—as yodeling was an identifying commercial trademark of his singing. So he surely felt obligated in include some on nearly every record he made—unfortunately, in this case.)82

- - -

“The Gambler” is an interesting effort which deserves some examination and comment here as well. We may particularly benefit by sharply distancing from the well-known Kenny Rogers rendition. (This may be a good test of how well we’ve learned to jettison biases based on extraneous considerations, as I earlier so strongly admonished doing in various sections of Part Two.) While he creditably weaves through most of the song in journeyman fashion, Rogers latterly careens off into near pop sing-along caricature. Shades of “Me and Bobby McGee”.

But Schlitz caught lightning in a bottle using the game of poker as metaphor for great lessons of life; there was so much material to mine and incorporate. And he came through with a great piece of songwriting:

On a warm summer’s evenin’,
On a train bound for nowhere,
I met up with a gambler;
We were both too tired to sleep.
So we took turns a-starin’
Out the window at the darkness.
The boredom overtook us,
And he began to speak.

He said, “Son, I’ve made a life
Out of readin’ people’s faces;
And knowin’ what the cards were
By the way they held their eyes.
So if you don’t mind me sayin’,
I can see you’re out of aces.
For a taste of your whiskey
I’ll give you some advice”.

So I handed him my bottle,
And he drank down my last swallow.
Then he bummed a cigarette
And then he bummed a light.
And the night got deathly quiet;
And his faced lost all expression;
He said, ”If you’re gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right:

“’Cause every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’
Is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep.
’Cause every hand’s a winner,
Just like every hand’s a loser;
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

chorus:

“You’ve got to know when to hold ’em.
Know when to fold ’em.
Know when to walk away
And know when to run.
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealin’s done.”

And when he finished speakin’
He turned back toward the window
He crushed out his cigarette
And faded off to sleep.
And somewhere in the darkness,
The Gambler he broke even.
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep.

chorus repeat83

If it was Schlitz himself who originated the multiple chorus repetitions that Rogers then later also employed, it’s unfortunate and it certainly—and unnecessarily—lessens the effort. A big, happy sing-along after the primary character DIES?!? Was it just to lengthen a great song from 2:45 to 3:30—was that the objective? If so, may I suggest, here again, an instrumental pass or two on that chorus instead?84

But, really, for what more could one ask in a popular song? A good story that comes off as almost a fable of The Old West; a pleasant melody; and not just one, but several well-played observations and insights in a complete and well-rounded presentation. This is work to admire.

I will offer that to me, however, even though the character of The Gambler outright dies in the song story—which one might assert should already clearly put the entire composition into higher relief—his demise comes off as almost off-handed; a negligibility. Whether my reservation is worthy or not, one additional verse still might advantage the effort, or at least wouldn’t over-burden the concept: a verse wherein we take yet one more step away from preceding events to paint a larger picture or reflection. Perhaps conjecture and rumination by the narrator on the antecedent life of The Gambler—the compromises he must have made, how twists of life may have brought him to what he became, the loves he must have had and now left behind, unknowing. Or perhaps even a partial philosophical rejection of The Gambler’s imparted wisdom as too reductionist or pat, despite accepting its obvious quotidian sagacity. Without taking a lot of time to further consider what such an additional verse might reveal or advance, I can certainly allow that my intuition here may simply be too demanding; there’s no question Schlitz has done a truly bang-up job.

- - -

As noted earlier, it would take too much time to go through all six of the examples here mentioned as songs particularly worthy of appreciation. But I urge the reader again to take some time to deferentially familiarize himself or herself with each. Great work is that rare. And we’ll specifically examine one more of them, “California Cotton Fields”, in a later section as well.

79Old joke: “What did the Deadhead say when the drugs finally wore off?” “I don’t know—what did the Deadhead say when the drugs finally wore off?” “Gosh, actually, this band sucks.”

80“El Paso”, copyright 1959 by Marty Robbins. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

81“Down the Old Road to Home”, copyright 1932 by Jimmie Rodgers. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

82Similarly and famously, Western swing band leader Bob Wills apparently felt ‘inspired’ to doggedly inject his wildly intrusive (albeit also ultimately entertaining, from a strictly performance standpoint) “A-ha!”s and other distracting falsetto interruptions into his band’s performances. The tail wags the dog—shtick becomes the identifying showbiz necessity—to the detriment of a serious song. In Wills’ case, of course, he was leading a dance band—see the section on dance music earlier—so such conceits may be more tolerantly indulged. But I’ve often wondered if his interpolations didn’t really derive, at first anyway, from jealousy; simple fear of being over-shadowed, upstaged, by the vocalist in his band. (It’s MY band, dammit, so I’m gonna make sure everybody’s CONSTANTLY reminded of that!) Who knows.

83“The Gambler”, copyright 1976 by Don Schlitz. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

84Yes, I’ve suggested this same musical solution in similar circumstance earlier as well, for “Me and Bobby McGee”. And though the reader may think me simplistic or limited in that consistency, let me again cite Garrison Keillor’s work: in this case, a simple but profoundly effective production allocation of time in the A Prairie Home Companion radio show. Almost always following his “News from Lake Wobegon” recitations—10-15 minutes generally accepted to be the highlight of that two-hour broadcast—there came a strictly instrumental musical interlude; an adagio opportunity for audience reflection and thought on what had just been transmitted; very much as one might encounter in a well-programmed church service following the pastor’s homily or sermon. I absolutely believe this was programmed there for similar effect, from similar showbiz experience and awareness. (After all, what is a good—rather, an effective—church service but practiced practical showbiz, eh?) When one has delivered work that allows—if lucky, even requires—reflection and thought, the ‘tried and true’ segue is into a musical, (i.e., a non-verbal) denouement. Think about it. (On the other hand, if there’s nothing to ponder but trite ideas and bad writing leading up to a certain place, maybe the last thing we’d then want is time to consider it.)

Section 40

Quick! Get Me ReWrite!

Art is never finished, only abandoned. — Leonardo da Vinci

A quick over-view of some key aspects of copyright law is perhaps in order. I’ve not been sure where to insert this section—it’s germane but something of a tangent—but here’s probably as good a place as any.

First off, on the music side, a melody can be copyrighted, but a chord progression can’t. And for those reading who have no musical knowledge, the reason for this is that any number of melodies can be derived and constructed from the exact same chord sequence. A melody is just a single note to the next single note to the next, with the length of the spaces in between; a chord contains many notes and there are many ways to get from one note to another to another.

Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You”, mentioned earlier, has the exact same chord sequence as Bernie Taupin’s and Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock”, John Lennon’s “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”—and zillions more songs. If a chord sequence could be copyrighted, very few 1950s pop songs would ever have existed—probably most of ’em, if study were made, would be instantly recognized to be a simple variation on one of just two basic chord structures. Either C-Am-F-G, (in this or another key, so more demotically notated as I, vi, IV, V)—which is also the chord progression of all those songs just named above—and the 12-bar blues, in whatever key. So the first songs written in each sequence—copyrighted—would have squelched the thousands or tens of thousands of songs that actually followed. Make sense?

On the lyrics side, writing new lyrics for, or inserting other lyrics into, a copyrighted song, without permission, is called ‘creating an unauthorized derivative work’, and it’s a violation of copyright.

How much one can get away with on either side of the matter—melody or lyrics—is up to the legal system in each and every individual case, of course. What you or I think the law allows or prohibits is really just ignorant conjecture—and frankly, even the most capable lawyers are ultimately guessing. (The big difference, obviously—and why they get paid mountains of money—is they have a wealth of training and experience to guide their ‘guess’.) What I’m saying here in a rather circuitous way is that first there has to be a lawsuit filed, then it has to be won (or lost) to know if the defendant’s work violated copyright (or not). Circumstances are never exactly the same; the law and interpretations of it change over time; judges and juries do not all think alike.

It always surprises me how unaware and even frightened—innocently ignorant and afraid—most people are of such matters. Flagrant violations are obvious, of course—and don’t think otherwise. But some is really just various shades of gray along a continuum, from brightest white to deepest black. And, as noted, copyright actually changes over time as new lawsuits are brought and either won or lost, and as new thinking is incorporated into law.

For instance, the “Blurred Lines”/“Got To Give It Up” case of a couple years back may end up opening some interesting flood gates, insofar as what determined the guilty verdict outcome was essentially just the production and influences evinced in the song—genre, style, orchestration, ‘sound’, ‘vibe’, ‘groove’ and etc—as opposed to actual melody or lyrics.

Even the length of copyright itself has changed—greatly expanding in duration. In the United States, it started with the first laws established in 1790, which allowed copyright for 14 years with a renewal of 14 more. Today, it lasts the lifetime of the author plus 70 years thenafter.

Could one bring a successful suit against an act—say a female singer—who simply changed the word ‘her’ in a song to ‘him’, in order to work for her gender preference? Well, first off, as I’m indicating—and this can’t be over-emphasized—anyone can be sued for anything. But we used the word ‘successfully’ in our question, and so the answer is certainly no, as it’s unlikely any damage to the work could be successfully argued, and so such a suit would surely be tossed before even reaching the courtroom.

Yet it most certainly is, very strictly, an alteration of the copyrighted lyrics, no?

I know this may all seem a bit arcane and petty—and you betcha, ‘legalistic’—but it very directly impacts even the most innocent of songwriting efforts.

- - -

True story: I liked the sound of a song I’d heard many years before called “Above and Beyond”, recorded and commercially successful by Buck Owens and later by Rodney Crowell. The song came to mind every once in a while over the years, until I eventually worked up a solo acoustic guitar arrangement that seemed to work. But I was always doubtful about the lyrics, which appeared, well, ‘unfinished’ to me. Here it is—it starts with the chorus:

chorus:

Oh, I’ll give you love
That’s above and beyond the call of lo-o-ove,
And I’ll never ever make you cry.
Ah yes, I’ll give you love
That’s above and beyond the call of lo-o-ove;
And love’s something that money can’t buy.

verse 1

Well a poor boy’s chances for a pretty girl’s glances
Are sometimes very few.
Though I’ve got no money, if you’ll be my honey,
Here’s what I’ll offer you:

chorus repeat

verse 2

We met by chance and I knew at a glance
That I’d found my destiny.
Now I want to carry you off and marry you
If you will agree.

chorus repeat85

No, not great art, but a pleasant distraction; a nice melody; filler. I wasn’t crazy about the chorus—“I’ll give you love that’s above and beyond the call of love”, with that last (very redundant) word spread over three ascending notes. Not great. And I felt it also just needed a third verse. So here’s the song, as I re-wrote it and recorded it on my first album:

I’ve met lots of girls around this old world,
And some have given my heart a thrill.
But I never met one who was half as much fun
And I reckon I never will.

chorus (revised) repeat85

Absolutely the same song, yes. And still not ‘great art’. But, I also assert, clearly stronger.

Before recording (and in retrospect what was I thinking?!?) I played my re-write for Buck himself—not realizing how very presumptuous the whole endeavor was—naively hoping for a green light. I’m glad he was such an approachable guy, believe me.

His response stays with me still. After about five awkward seconds of dead air, he blurted out, “Well, heck, Michael, that’s a better song! That’s a better song. Now I can’t sing it that way because of what folks expect, but you go right on ahead. Good job!”

This was quickly appended by another bit of dead air and a sudden look of concern. “But you’re payin’ the royalties, right?!?”

I confirmed the obvious obligation and we both laughed. And, of course, the copyright notice was properly posted—the original copyright hadn’t changed at all.

Lesson: what most songwriters worry about are two primary things. First, that any change—big or small, inadvertent or deliberate—isn’t an embarrassment (or worse, an outright trashing!) And second, equally, that the dollars—pounds, euros, rands, clams, simoleons—are properly paid. That obviously doesn’t mean one should arrogantly disregard formal responsibilities and proper respect; indeed it means just the opposite.

Fun addendum: Though “Above and Beyond” was a hit record for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, the song was actually written by the great Harlan Howard—meaning Buck’s ‘authorization’ was, frankly, entirely illegitimate.

And so could Harlan Howard have sued me? Sure, if he wanted to. I expect he would have easily prevailed, too, and the judgment so steep I’d still be poor today. How poor? Too poor to even pay attention. (Sorry, old joke—couldn’t restrain myself.)

The bigger you get, the bigger the finances, and the more pugnacious the lawyers; the greater the propriety, circumspection and responsibility is required—in songwriting as elsewhere throughout life.

- - -

But of even more pertinence to the primary focus of this manifesto was Owens’ truly remarkable willingness—remarkable rare willingness and ability—to recognize better lyrics in a song he himself had been performing for over two decades. It is almost always profoundly difficult for someone, having been exposed to a song for years and years and years, to accept different—yes, even clearly better—lyrics to it than those inferior ones that have become known by heart. The challenge to do so here will be regularly encountered in the next section, which addresses Bob Dylan’s songs, and where—as in past sections when I’ve suggested replacing specific words and lines in other songs—we’ll be discussing lyrics which are probably known exactly, word for word, set in concrete, in the reader’s memory.

85“Above and Beyond”, copyright 1960 by Harlan Howard. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 41

Bob Dylan: Bad Writer, Bad Influence

If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding the truth; the bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. — Carl Sagan

If we want to get firmly into good songwriting, we have to get past exalted bad songwriting, meaning we have to address Bob Dylan’s work. And the inane “Forever Young”, discussed earlier, is just the tip of the iceberg.

But first, a digression—in the form of a question: have ya ever heard of Edward Bulwer-Lytton?

Sound at all familiar?

He was probably the most famous and successful author of the nineteenth century—click around the net for a full run-down on his truly outsized career.86 He was even offered—get this—the throne of Greece. Yes, if he’d wanted he could have been King Edward I of Greece, with all the rarefied royal exemptions and prerogatives. True. (I assume he turned the gig down ’cause it mighta cramped his style. Edward Bulwer-Lytton lived a LARGE life.) More famous and popularly revered in his time than Charles Dickens, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy or Samuel Clemens (maybe even of all of them combined) today he’s mostly known, if at all, as simply the butt of a joke. Bulwer-Lytton is the author of that now most ridiculed of opening lines, “It was a dark and stormy night....”

Here’s another fun look back. In 1890 twenty-plus successful painters in Paris dined together at the home of a high-profile art dealer to debate and consider which artists then working would be considered the greatest a century later.87 This was the era of Courbet, Renoir, Cezanne, Delacroix, Corot, Manet, Degas, Seurat, Van Gogh, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin and many others we all know and love today. The assembled artists and allied professionals carefully deliberated, and finally decided that THE two great talents of the time—the ones who would remain superstars far into the future were—drum roll, please: William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier! I’m willing to bet you’ve never heard of either of ’em.

How about Louis Spohr? The composer Louis Spohr? Listen to his stuff much? Hum his tunes in the shower? A contemporary and friend of Beethoven, he was by far the more successful of the two. In fact, he was arguably the most lionized and rewarded composer of the entire nineteenth century.

Earlier I made a couple of predictions about the future—one about singing in affected ‘po’ folks’ accent and one about awards shows: that both will be seen as embarrassing and distasteful examples of the hubris of these times. Another one I’ll add here is that a hundred years from now Bob Dylan—like Bulwer-Lytton, Bougeureau, Meissonier and Spohr today—will be trash-canned by history; seen as a gawky second-rate idiosyncrasy of our era. His songs, if remembered at all, will be performed as minor amusements or as oddball museum curiosities. “Wow! People back then thought THIS stuff was good writing?!?”

But obviously, Dylan has had and continues to enjoy a major place in current American culture. For those who enjoy a pleasant pop tune, but seek more depth than what’s found in the rest of the great sea of industrial banalities, his stuff offers an academically approved opportunity to 1.) join in the fun, while 2.) additionally maintaining (due to that academic and critical praise) that one is championing songs which are actually Serious, Substantive Works of Art.

Unfortunately for that obstinate conceit, the songs are in fact not ‘serious, substantive works of art’. And he’s an embarrassingly bad writer.

Assessing his place in the culture is like playing Whack-A-Mole. I don’t mean critiquing the writing—even at its best it’s generally clumsy and directionless—but rather just getting past his celebrity and all its dreadful and dense ramifications. Think ‘Kardashians Go To Community College’. (And, in the ‘credit where due department’, there are some parts of songwriting in which he occasionally does a passably workmanlike job.) So approaching Dylan requires first slashing away a lot of entangled detritus and inessential ephemera—the kind I tried to eradicate in Part Two—and the most pernicious of which when discussing Dylan is all the insufferably glib fan idolatry; the utterly imbecilic hero worship.

While this manifesto was being written, for instance, he was named recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for his collected lyrics. The Nobel folks presumably thought themselves quite clever and trendy in the matter; but the precarious posturing is at best cynical, really almost laughable. (No, actually laughable—I did exactly that when I heard the announcement itself. Two of the great reasons they exalted him was “He’s a wonderful sampler...[and] he’s reinvented himself constantly, creating a new identity over and over!”.88 I think my thoughts on plagiarism—er, so sorry, I mean ‘sampling’—and on an act ‘re-inventing itself’ are pretty clear.) If they were so determined to hand more money to this or that already rich popular American baby boomer celebrity, why not to Woody Allen for his collected screenplays? Or to Garrison Keillor for his mammoth body of often excellent radio and print work? Or—while not American, still English speaking—the consistently and explosively brilliant playwright Tom Stoppard? Oh, you folks in Stockholm were dead set on an American songwriter? Okay, well, ever heard of Stephen Sondheim? All four of them—Allen, Keillor, Stoppard and Sondheim—unquestionably, far, far better writers than the unfortunate hamstrung Bob Dylan. I honestly expect that in the end the Nobel folks were themselves properly embarrassed, and relieved when the travesty they’d manufactured had begun to pass.

- - -

Anecdote #1: Dave Van Ronk, the paterfamilias of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early 1960s, reportedly enjoyed telling the following story: One late night, Dylan—then crashing at Van Ronk’s residence—came in holding tight to some papers, lyrics for a new song he’d just written, eager to learn Van Ronk’s reaction. The avuncular Van Ronk, apparently always an available and honest critic, handed over the guitar and Dylan played and sang his new composition. Van Ronk then immediately launched into a short battery of questions—obviously not at all impressed. “Bob, it doesn’t make any sense. WHAT ‘wind’? What are you talking about? What’s the point? What ‘answers’? ‘answers are blowing in the wind’?!?”.... Van Ronk apparently liked to tell the story as a self-deprecation, getting a laugh from his audience and enjoying the laugh at his own expense—as “Blowin’ in the Wind” was of course successfully marketed to an adolescent generation, brought in a whole lot of money, and attained cultural landmark status. (A key adjective in the preceding sentence is the word ‘adolescent’, an aspect of popular song addressed back in Section 35.)

Yet were we re-visiting that scene this very moment, Van Ronk sitting across from me right now, I’d step forward, take firm hold of and shake him by his shoulders, look him in the eye, and say, “But Dave! Dave! Hold on! You were right! It IS poorly-written! This IS crap! Trust your gut, dammit—and let go of the self-doubt just because it became a pop hit!”89

- - -

Anecdote #2: Many years ago I came across mention of a Dylan song of which I’d never heard, and which had apparently been a big hit when covered by another performer. I immediately thought, “Wow! Here’s a chance to take a look at a piece of his work without being affected by the melody or performance—a song that was successful, not secondary, as it apparently spoke to a lot of people. Wonderful! What a great opportunity.” I googled the lyrics—the web was already able to deliver really useful info like that—and I studied them....

Let’s see here.... Well those two lines do (kinda) refer back to this (half-baked) thought over there, yes. Okay. And that entire short verse over there does make intrinsic sense, no question about that. On the other hand even though that verse does hold together, it’s got nothing to do with any of the rest of the song. Hmm. The title, the kinda ‘point’ line, is repeated again over there—that’s neither good nor bad, but worth noting that he’s at least trying to create some persistence, a whole package.... And on and on—I spent serious time with it, back and forth trying to make connections and discern objectives, to find this or that resonant locution or insight, to deduce that over-arching intent and direction. It was an interesting, informative exercise, but I came away quite unimpressed with the song.

A year and a half later, wanting to see if maybe I’d missed something that first time around, I took that same song AGAIN, and went through it all another time, line by line, verse by verse. A completely fresh investigation. After all, maybe I overlooked something important—a pivotal connection, allusion or piece of sagacity. (I mean he’s ‘Bob Dylan The Voice of A Generation’, right? Or so I was basically—and then still with some innocent deference—thinking at the time. All the encomiums and accolades couldn’t really be misplaced, could they?)

I came to the same conclusion about the song as I did 18 months earlier: incompetent blather, pedestrian drivel. Embarrassing, really, were one to sing it trying to muster conviction. I still haven’t heard the song—and melody and performance can certainly make a difference in one’s simple passing amusement. But what we’re discussing is the writing.

No, I’m not gonna reveal the name of the song here, because the specific piece isn’t important. But I suggest you try the experiment yourself. Find a song of his you’ve never heard, web search and print out the lyrics, and take a long, careful, dispassionate look at it. Don’t simply find lines or words that remind you of something else that’s lauded and be satisfied—the dimwitted and superficial Sir Chris Ricks approach to literary criticism—but look for full-scale ideas, fleshed out and presented with eloquence. See if you find any. And see if you find overall consistency and coherence—without, that is, resorting to contorted wishful thinking and patented nonsense in the form of unfounded, entirely fabricated and convoluted subjective ‘interpretations’. Good luck.

- - -

Anecdote #3: A good friend of mine and his band comprised of long-time professionals, all with hit songs and national tours behind them, had just completed recording an album. In casual conversation, he mentioned that all the songs on the album were written by different band members and pairings of band members except one: they were a little short, so they worked up a Bob Dylan song. “Which one?” I asked. I thought his shrugging response a perfect comment on Dylan’s œuvre: “Oh...Damn...I can’t remember,” he laughed, “It doesn’t matter.” I immediately recognized he was right, of course. He didn’t mean to be critical—or even realize the wisdom he’d revealed—but in many ways Bob’s songs really are quite negligible, interchangeable. Pop wallpaper. (We’ll get to why that is below.)

- - -

If we wanted to add an Anecdote #4, we could use the first part of the earlier section entitled “A Personal Remembrance”—wherein I note I’d always innocently intuited, even while still but a teenager, that there was just something missing; something vapid and vacuous in his songs.

- - -

Language is in decline. Not only has eloquence departed, but simple direct speech as well—though pomposity and banality have not. — Edwin Newman

As I noted earlier when discussing “Forever Young”, one could really never credibly put the words ‘Bob Dylan’ and ‘articulate’ in the same sentence. Elegance, economy and eloquence are quite outside his enfeebled grasp. But that has made his songs, and the sheer output of them, a great gift to obsessive fans, striving academics and DIY pseudo-intellectuals eager to find, analyze and interpret the purportedly deep meanings and hidden associations in the wibbling efforts by their hero—their hero who deftly, and I’d say with very good reason, adamantly refuses seriously discussing them himself.

The upshot of that evasion, of course, is that along with freeing him from having to explain the flat-footed songs, it concurrently feeds the hungry cottage industry of servile self-described ‘Dylanologists’ that takes on the burden. And ultimately, abetted by celebrity culture and the low-rent popular fascination with an unforthcoming (read: ‘elusive’, ‘mysterious’) luminary, the whole threadbare apparatus lurches onward. A lot of happy baby boomers—and a large percentage of Dylan fanatics are simply frustrated baby boomer guys—fill a lot of contented hours pursuing their all-consuming pastime. The single-minded sanctimoniousness of it all is reminiscent of what you might find with a bunch of old men wearing overalls and railroad hats happily playing with model trains down in the basement: obliviously consumed, blindly committed hobbyists—most of whose marriages probably stopped working twenty years ago. When gathered in real life university-sponsored ‘academic Dylan conferences’—Comic-Cons for the obsessed Dylan acolyte—the reported subtextual objective of every presentation, of every conversation, is to be the most committed fan, the biggest apologist, the One Who Loves Bob The Most.

There’s a reality show emptiness and intellectual lethargy common in the Dylan phenomenon, a ‘discipline’ that finds riches in privation, resonance in twaddle, substance in vacancy—and most pertinently, subjective validation in idolatry.

Bob’s productive, no doubt about that. But as noted earlier, simply pumping stuff out is a mercantile accomplishment, not an artistic one.

When he goes the ‘Poetic Lyrics’ route, there’s a dearth of actual ideas—and those that are extant so ham-fistedly, incoherently addressed that you have to throw up your hands in exasperation. (Or of course there’s always the option of just exclaiming, “But it’s POETRY!”....) Regularly exacerbating the poverty is what I call ‘Faux-Folk’—the tortured syntax and obtuse inversions that are the imperious (or just incompetent?) written equivalents, really, of the vocalist-pretending-to-have-been-born-on-a-cotton-plantation crap exposed earlier.

And when he attempts to use the language efficiently and directly, the klutzy songs invariably waddle along deprived of grace, bereft of finesse, like the aforementioned “Forever Young”. Let’s look at a few more examples of both breeds.

“Hurricane”:

Pistols shots ring out in the bar room night.
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood;
Cries out, “My God, they killed them all!”

Here comes the story of the Hurricane;
The man the authorities came to blame
For something that he never done.
Put him in a prison cell but one time he coulda been
The champion of the world!90.......—

We’re told in the song, four times, that Reuben “Hurricane” Carter could’ve been world champion—it’s the ultimate line in that chorus above, which we hear again and again. The rest of the song is a frenetic stitching together of the posited facts of the case, and as such I think it unfair to criticize the rhymes and wording too harshly. After all, Dylan’s essentially trying to present a legal case. But even so—and as usual when he attempts to write and speak plainly—what we get is pretty much devoid of anything beyond mediocre, disjointed prose; in this case something reminiscent of a high school book report.

And does anyone really care—better, should anyone really care—that Carter could have been champion of the world? Is that really of any pertinence in arguing for his supposed innocence? To shallow Bob, it sure seems to be.

- - -

“Masters of War”: Talk about fatiguing, thudding, lumbering tripe. Even as that insecure and provincial teenager back in the Deep South, I knew this was far beneath anything I could allow myself to perform.

Come you masters of war;
You that build all the guns;
You that build the death planes;
You that build all the bombs;
You that hide behind walls;
You that hide behind desks;
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy;
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy.
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes.
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly91.......—

And so on.

What can one say about something this leaden, this ponderous? If you’d never heard it, and someone reported it was written by an eighth-grader, you’d be properly impressed with the little fellah’s nascent ability, wouldn’t you? And as noted earlier, this was another of Dylan’s many outright musical thefts.

As for the lyrics: “death planes”? “fast bullets”? Short on adjectives, are we? That’s the best you can do? Even here, using the simplest of one-syllable words, the lack of language skills is glaring. Bob, bullets always fly fast; “fast bullets fly” is redundant. How about—and this didn’t take hours of thinking—‘big’ or ‘hard’ instead of ‘fast’? Yes, better, isn’t it? With ‘hard’, the negligible loss in alliteration is more than made up for in the added description—and if we use ‘big’ we simply trade alliterative words and get greater description. After all, the point is to underscore the sinister destructive power of the weapons, not just fill space in the lyric line.

And “You play with my world”, Bob? If one is trying to foment popular antipathy, better would surely be “You play with our world”, eh? And “You put guns in our hands and you hide from our eyes”? Ya see, Bob, it’s the pivotal, critical difference between “I shall overcome” and “We shall overcome.” Or maybe that difference is too subtle fer ya?

But this song needs one hell of a lot more help than simply changing the view from first person singular to first person plural and re-writing some lyrics here and there. That’s just rearranging deck chairs on Bob’s hard-tilting Titanic.

“Masters of War” is really just another example illustrating that, as with the preponderance of his efforts, the real ‘message’ is Dylan’s severely limited capacities as a writer.

- - -

Now for some of the ‘Poetic Lyrics’, for which he’s held in such high esteem.

And in my research for this essay, believe it or not, I actually discovered a long lost verse to one of Dylan’s most celebrated songs! It’s a never before heard verse to his “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”!

Here’s the first verse of that well-known song:

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been my darling young one?
I’e stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways,
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard.

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall!92

And here’s the previously unknown, long lost verse I stumbled upon:

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw twelve drummers drummin’ and eleven pipers pipin’,
I watched ten lords a-leapin’ with nine ladies dancin’,
There were eight maids a-milkin’ and seven swans a-swimmin’,
Then six geese a-layin’, wearin’ five golden rings,
I saw four calling birds and three chirping French hens,
I saw two turtle doves...and a partridge in a pear tree!

And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard,
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall!

Yes, this is obviously a joke. So is Bob’s pleasant yet turgidly impotent song. But our contribution to it here is on the same level of ‘poetic brilliance’, so fine.

I really just don’t see the need to take time going through his song line by line. Is “I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard” a lyric that says something to you?

Oh, and yes, this is yet another theft—this one plundering a song called “Lord Randall”, both the melody and the lyrical blueprint.

- - -

“Mr Tambourine Man”: First off, it’s hard to “play a song” on a tambourine—requesting, repeatedly, that one do so is a ridiculous in-our-faces stretch at best. And all the ostensibly dreamy smokiness—the rhyme scheme looking desperately for rhymes—brings us to where, exactly? Is there a point to this song other than the self-absorbed “I like to smoke dope—and the writing in this song kinda proves it in more ways than one”?

Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me.
I’m not sleepy and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me;
In the jingle-jangle morning I’ll come following you.

Though I know that evening’s empire has returned into sand,
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping;
My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet,
And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming93.......—

But let’s forbear and indulge. One can argue—and reasonably, too—that the off-beat and amusing “jingle-jangle morning” refers back to the sound of a tambourine, or just nicely bookends it. Hell, I’ll buy it. Sure. But that’s about all, really. And to what end? Cute, but no more. We’re just back to the Tambourine Man, for whatever reason he’s supposed to be here94. “Evening’s empire has returned into sand”? “Evening’s empire”, Bob? That sounds interesting, but doesn’t really tell us anything—does it? “Empire”? A little over-ripe as a metaphor for yesterday, eh? And “into sand”? Why? “Vanished from”—where? “my hand”? Are you kidding me? The events of yesterday, presumably, “vanished from my hand”?

Yes, it really wants to be poetry, and it really does try—and it all just goes on and on, floundering about, gasping for air, flopping this way and that—in desperate determination to jackhammer this square peg rhyme into that round hole line and get outa there before anyone notices. As ‘poetry’, pathetic. As a pleasant, radio-friendly pop song, sure. It does have that nice tune beneath it.

- - -

“Chimes of Freedom”: Chimes ring. Lights flash. But chimes don’t flash—well, unless maybe we’re singing about a railroad crossing? But even there, with the two things going on at once, it’s still the lights flashing, and the chimes ringing. So Bob, look, out it: no two ways about it: chimes just don’t flash, okay? No matter how urgently you sing it out, and how often you repeat it, it’s still stupid (cf. “American Pie”). And you’ve just told us there’s no reason we should indulge anything else here—that you’re incapable of conveying whatever it is you think you’re trying to say.

This is a song that’s just overflowing with what I call Fortune Cookie Wisdom—and as with other attempts Dylan makes to say something of substance, simply bounces along the surface, avoiding actual engagement. A litany of non sequiturs, ostensibly ratified by that squishy portentous refrain—those gosh-darn lovably irrepressible ‘Flashing Chimes’.

And, once again, another Dylan rip off—melody and structure—this time of a church song called “The Chimes of Trinity”.

Johnny’s in the basement,
Mixing up the medicine.
I’m on the pavement,
Thinking about the government.
The man in the trench coat—
Badge out, laid off—
Says he’s got a bad cough;
Wants to get it paid off.
Look out kid,
It’s somethin’ you did.
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again.
You better duck down the alley way,
Lookin’ for a new friend.
The man in the coon-skin cap
By the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten95.......—

This tedious blather—another of the many, many songs sometimes claimed to be ‘the first rap song’, by the way—would actually be a fair counter-example to good rap writing. It’s got some, but very little, coherent information, disarrayed in a preposterously prolix package. “Wants to get his cough paid off.”? “The man in the coon-skin cap by the big pen wants eleven dollar bills.”? Does anyone really care? You can ‘interpret’ this as well as I, certainly—but can we rather just agree doing so isn’t worth the time?

- - -

“Lay Lady Lay”: Christ, here we go again. “Lay across my big brass bed,” Bob? “Across”? She’s supposed to get comfortable in this scenario, right? (Or is the song not a seduction at all, but just a paean to some strange new variation on the prank of short-sheeting?)

Lay, lady, lay; lay across my big brass bed.
Lay, lady, lay; lay across my big brass bed.
Whatever colors you have in your mind,
I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.

Lay, lady, lay; lay across my big brass bed.
Stay, lady, stay; stay with your man awhile.
Until the break of day; let me see you make him smile.
His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean,
And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen96.......—

Once again, we’re back to a ‘Bob Dylan as Straight Talker’ song—with all the lead-footed straining and battering ram subtleties this variety of Bob provides. “Whatever colors you have in your mind, I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine”? Sex as a sample wheel of Sherwin-Williams house paint colors. Doesn’t sound too seductive. “You’ll see them shine” actually makes me groan. (But maybe he’s just continuing the metaphor. So, gloss tints? Day-Glo?) “Let me see you make him smile”? Him? So we’re now suddenly gonna talk about ourself in third person? You want to watch her make him smile. Why? Are we being coy? Cute? Don’t have the commitment—or maybe the vocabulary—to continue beseeching directly? (Yes, yes, obviously “him” is you as well, Bob. We get it. But look, dear God, would you just please stop?)

As it is with poignancy, romantic seduction is quite beyond little Bobby’s command.

- - -

“The Times They Are A-Changin’”: Here’s a song that’s not aging gracefully. But it’s got my all-time Number One Favorite Dylan Faux-Folk Line! “The loser now will be later to win.” So ludicrously convoluted and mangled that one has a hard time not just bursting into loud laughter. “The loser now will be later to win.” I love it! And on a lesser level there’s also “the wheel’s still in spin”—which probably means the ‘wash’ and ‘rinse’ cycles are done.

But seriously, yes, times change. For some reason, I don’t find that all too insightful. Bob’s severe thematic limitations—the closest he can come to direction is haphazardly piling up a list of incomplete and disjointed remonstrations—is on full display here. And the primary line, “The times, they are a-changin’”—yet more Faux-Folk fatuity—is rather precious, don’t ya think?

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam,
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown.
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’,
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone,
For the times they are a-changin’!97.......—

“Come gather ’round people”—okay, so we’re all here in this place, we’re being asked to close ranks and listen. Sure thing. “Wherever you roam”—no wait, he must be speaking to us by radio or some such. We’re not all here in this spot. Ah, well then let’s all huddle around our radios in each of our communities. An awkwardly lunging false start, but go ahead, Bob.

“And admit that the waters around you have grown.” Perhaps better than “admit” would be “accept”, but maybe I’m quibbling.

And of course if we do use “accept”, then we surely shouldn’t immediately use it again in the next line, as he does. But that’s not a major obstacle. Perhaps “realize”—enunciated as two syllables in keeping with the Faux-Folk affectation—might work even better than “accept”, as it additionally highlights that the singer is, indeed, warning us of something with which we may not have been aware. So “And realize the waters around you have grown.” Eh? He’s bringing us new information. It also sits on top of the notes without the necessity of the initial grace note for the word “and”. We could even go with “And see that the waters around you have grown.” Again, he alerts us—so definitely an improvement over “admit”.

But what the hell; let’s just stay with it anyway—stay with his “admit that the waters around you have grown”—and move on.

“And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.” “Drenched to the bone?” The point of the verse here, as specified in the previous line and nailed in subsequent lines, is that it’s a rising flood we’re facing. ‘Drenched to the bone’ is a phrase much more suitable—generally applicable—to addressing the effects of a rainstorm, or maybe a water-balloon fight. A cataclysmic, catastrophic flood is a whole different ballgame. Rain can be part of it, of course, but it’s certainly quite secondary. How about “And accept it that soon you’ll be drowning alone”, or some variation on that statement. I don’t assert this is the best we can do—good writing takes time, and there’s plenty of other available rhyming words with which to work here—but it’s certainly a lot closer, a better fit, to the over-arching intent. “Or you’ll sink like a stone” later nails that very idea—so let’s allow it to do that. “Drenched to the bone” is really kind of weak; a waste of space and a mis-direction. (And, by the way, “you’ll sink like a stone”, his clincher line here, is actually also half-assed. It implies that people are—have already been—swimming but then couldn’t keep going for one reason or another. Not that they stayed put while the waters got steadily higher around them—the scenario he’s been setting up. You have the immediate choice of swimming or sinking if you get tossed into already deep water.)

A chorus—in this case more accurately a refrain line—of such simplicity and obviousness as the one here one can most certainly work, though, so in itself this isn’t a problem, and despite even the cutesy syntax. Hell, give us some depth elsewhere and it’s entirely fine; don’t get me wrong. But to do so, here again, the ideas between the repeated observation should provide real, substantive insight—the refrain then providing a summation or resonance derived, clearly, from those collected insights. What we get here instead are blocks of generalities, clumsily recounted, that really say nothing at all insightful, substantive or even assertive—culminating in that vacuous pronouncement.

The song doesn’t—can’t—provide any direction or even inclination. To me, it’s kinda reminiscent of the mild, inoffensive act of some tired, toupée-wearing Borscht Belt comedian: poke middle-brow saccharine fun at usual targets, keep it moving, and Do Not Offend. If you’re a hard-core right-winger, for instance, is there anything said in the song you can’t sign on to? Think about it. Dylan even licensed it to one of the Big Five banks in Canada to use in TV commercials. And why not? An anthem of progressivism this song certainly ain’t. An insightful commentary on life and societal evolutions this song really isn’t either. A pretentious, portentous, paint-by-numbers ramble it most definitely is. Times change. Thanks so much—got it.

- - -

We’ve just given some quick looks at a few of his best-known and most prized efforts. But enough here. I don’t have the patience to spend time enduring—and then re-writing—every fucking clumsy, half-baked song Bob Dylan has disgorged and piled up. So let’s end this parade of invalids with a song that’s such schizophrenic piffle we can just let it ‘speak’ for itself: his well-known (and often covered) “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”…

Whoo-ee! Ride me high.
Tomorrow’s the day
My bride’s gonna come.
Oh, oh, are we gonna fly
Down in the easy chair!

I don’t care
How many letters they sent;
Morning came and morning went.
Pick up your money
And pack up your tent;
You ain’t goin’ nowhere

chorus repeat

Buy me a flute
And a gun that shoots
Tailgates and substitutes.
Strap yourself
To the tree with roots;
You ain’t goin’ nowhere.

chorus repeat

Genghis Khan,
He could not keep
All his kings
Supplied with sleep.
We’ll climb that hill no matter how steep,
When we get up to it.

chorus repeat98

Embarrassing. Just truly embarrassing. “Ghengis Khan, he could not keep all his kings supplied with sleep.” “Buy me a flute and a gun that shoots tailgates and substitutes.” “Whoo-ee! Ride me high. Tomorrow’s the day my bride’s gonna come. Oh, oh, are we gonna fly down in the easy chair!”

Yes, yes, he’s being—well, trying to be—whimsical and playful here. Oh, I do get it, yes.

Dear God, save us from such rancid, empty, malodorous crap.

- - -

Mentioning that “Mr Tambourine Man” has a nice melody gets to the heart of one of Bob’s actual strengths, however, and this is noteworthy. Using the basic arsenal of those 40 or so chords to which most of us in rock, folk, and country are effectively limited because of a lack of musical education, he gets a lot of range and variation in his tunes, his melodies. He’s not a great musician, and he’s certainly not a facile instrumentalist, so there’s a clear ceiling to what he can accomplish. But within those confines he generally does a creditable job of legitimate composing—of tunesmithing. One wonders what he could accomplish if he were an actual trained musician, because there’s some capability—some minor talent—evinced in that side of his songs. Compare his tunes to those of another songwriter who’s similarly popularly exalted primarily for his lyrics, Leonard Cohen, and Dylan’s songs are much the superior melodic accomplishment—even if we exclude all the many, many melodies he’s outright stolen. I don’t want to over-state Bob’s musical abilities—he ain’t no Burt Bacharach, Willie Nelson, or even Paul Simon—but we shall give credit where it is due.

And one advantage afforded Bob’s recordings is that he can get the eager participation of just about any instrumentalists he desires. There’s some absolutely first-rank players heard throughout his recorded and live concert presentations.

I think it’s also fair to agree, once one dispenses with all the utterly ignorant “He’s the greatest living user of the English language” stupidities, that he’s occasionally come up with some pleasant, amusing divertissements. Nothing of lasting literary or musical substance, perhaps, but entertaining journeyman stuff. For instance, “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts”, with its string of fun clichés and tropes from film and TV Westerns, is likable and works, no? And “Tangled Up in Blue”, from the same album, tells an amiable, if disjointed, account of a picaresque romance. What, exactly, “tangled up in blue” actually means is up for debate, but if you let it pass as kind of the lightweight ‘E-I-E-I-O’ to the rest of the song’s lightweight Old McDonald and his Farm there’s certainly nothing wrong with it. A presentable pop song; fine. “Desolation Row” perhaps reminds of a lesser “Hotel California”—like that far and away much better-written song it’s a generally intriguing enigmatic narrative with illusory signposts along the way.99 One really has to be indulgent to stay with the plodding gimmickry, but if you’ve smoked a lot of dope it can be engaging. (But then again, marijuana helps all of his songs—they should perhaps make it a mandatory precondition to any close listening.)

Dylan is at his best when he doesn’t try to obfuscate his natural shallowness and clear intellectual limitations by piling on the verbose vapidities and non sequitur pseudo-profundities.

Unfortunately, though, the vast majority of his stuff is of the “Quinn the Eskimo”, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” and “Tombstone Blues” variety—frivolous, undexterous confusions, sometimes publically postured (and publically received) as light and clever to mask the actual paucity of coherence and depth. And so, not so surprisingly, in their final effect not all that different, really, from the most basic 50s doo-wop song or children’s song, in which so many of the actual vocal sounds are just that: sounds only; non-lexical vocables; “Wham-bam-shang-a-lang”, “Da doo ron ron”, “Hi-ho, the derry-o!”, “Polly wolly doodle all the day”.

There’s actually no substantive difference between song lyrics that require a full-scale disembowelment and Frankensteinian reassembly—or a kilo of dope—to ‘make sense’, and those simple children’s songs. In both cases, the lyrics are secondary place-holders, really—at best effectively instrumental rather than vocal, gliding and punctuating as opposed to communicating.

In the song using actual language, however, the words are real, of course—they obviously have individual meaning. And in a Dylan song, often, each line or few lines may at least scan as a single statement or packet. It’s when taken as a whole that the incoherence and the ‘macro-blather’ in Bob Dylan’s efforts becomes apparent. We generally do indeed go nowhere. His ‘Poetic Lyrics’ simply evince profoundest breakdown between the micro—the wayward phrase or odd locution that makes passable idiosyncratic sense or simply entertains due to its eccentricity—and the macro. Note that this is not like what encounters in the occasional rich blues song, packed with too many intrinsically powerful but entirely disconnected ideas—because the ideas in a Dylan song are usually insubstantial, indicative, half-baked, and without resolution other than in the most one-dimensional and pedestrian expression. The ‘thinking’ is forgettable. Of the several of his lyrical phrases occasionally found quoted elsewhere, for instance, is there even one providing us with actual insight into life and the workings of the world? “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” is perhaps his best known line, and it’s really just a banality; a fair example of the overall dearth of depth.

It really doesn’t matter what Dylan is purportedly saying, the lack of clarity and direction is terminal, and so the words naturally devolve into a kinda shallow and gelatinous audial mish-mash, much like those nonsense doo-wop and nursery songs lyrics. Listening can be like settling into a warm bath, or going for a distracted ride in the country—it provides a pleasant background track. Hip Muzak.

And the overall lightness—a kinda consistent melodic but soporific blandness in most of Dylan’s songs, whether performed by him or others—helps make them such an easy and safe choice for folks like those in my friend’s band who need a song to fill out an album or a set list. The material is pretty much all critically canonized, fortunately (well, in fact, unfortunately); the songwriter is a fanzine celebrity; and the stolen and original tunes are sometimes attractive—so hey, who cares if the largely nonsense lyrics actually lumber incoherently past? Folks are singing along, unthinking, so fine. These are really just idiosyncratic, puffed up pop songs; songs not requiring studious attention—nor are they helped by attempts to invest authority in performance. In fact, that’s when the pronounced deficiencies in the writing become most embarrassingly prominent. There’s not much more trying than seeing and hearing a performer mentally wrestling to wedge authority and resonance into a slight and muddled Dylan concoction.

- - -

We’re going to devote the next section to one specific lesser-known Dylan song, as a kinda summary exemplification of his flustered cluelessness. But first, let’s end this section with a quick digression and a laugh—waddaya say? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uq6RIsB0Hs100.

89Even though the incident recounted here doesn’t appear in the book, I highly recommend Van Ronk’s autobiography, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, co-written with Elijah Wald—a well-written, light-hearted but incisive inside look at the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene. And while we’re mentioning co-author Wald’s work, two other welcome and well-written books by him that are similarly meritorious are How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll (a somewhat overly provocative title, surely, but a thoroughly excellent and enlightening history of American popular song) and Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. All intelligent, informative, worthwhile.

90“Hurricane”, copyright 1975 by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

91“Masters of War”, copyright 1963 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

93“Mr. Tambourine Man”, copyright 1965 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

94The actual ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ was a guitar player named Bruce Langhorne, a very nice fellow who died in early 2017, and spent his last many, many years in a pretty house near Venice Beach in Los Angeles. He played guitar on some of Dylan’s early albums (and albums by other Greenwich Village folkies of the time), owned a large Turkish tambourine-like instrument, and was Bob’s marijuana connection during the recording sessions. Langhorne was a singular fellow and all, and so fine; but no one should care about all that solipsistic ‘validating’ information—the song is of a piece, shouldn’t require an appendix, and remains trivial with or without one.

95“Subterranean Homesick Blues”, copyright 1965 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

96“Lay Lady Lay”, copyright 1969 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

97“The Times They Are A-Changin’”, copyright 1963 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

99I promised in an earlier section to later extoll the virtues of a song by the Eagles, despite the fact that they’re surely one of the most vacuous and smugly manufactured acts in recent decades. “Hotel California” is that song. I could live a full and happy life never again hearing this incessantly, intrusively, obnoxiously overplayed record even once. But all general disgust for the Eagles milieu aside, one must accept that “Hotel California”, written by Don Felder, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, is first-rate work, both musically and lyrically. (And so, once again ‘no’, unfortunately, to those looking for easy pigeon-hole answers, life ain’t all just black and white, good and bad.)

100For all the innocent little darlings, those Dylan acolytes who demand—with fiercest indignation—“How could anyonedare think Bob’s timeless brilliance is appropriate for dumbing down into a Broadway show!”, it was reportedly Bob himself who initiated and pushed 2006’s gargantuan The Times They Are A-Changin’ Broadway musical. He chose and ardently courted director/choreographer Twyla Tharpe, and eagerly participated in favorably hyping the whole excruciating extravaganza. It was his baby. Here’s the whole number that was excerpted for the clip above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-93Ck62tsGQ. Bob Dylan, the Edward Bulwer-Lytton of our time.

Section 42

Shallowness, Thy Name Is Bob

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. — Winston Churchill

Though the overall sound of Dylan’s recordings can be a pleasant background soundtrack, as noted above, I unfortunately find myself just exasperated by the relentlessly sloppy and second-rate lyrics. So I don’t ordinarily spend much time listening to his songs or reading about him.

Yet some significant exposure and research in that neighborhood was obviously required while preparing this manifesto. And while doing so I was introduced to a song of his with which I wasn’t previously familiar, entitled “Clothes Line Saga”, originally called “Answer to ‘Ode’”. It was written as a ‘response to’, an ‘homage to’, or a ‘parody of’—take your pick—Bobbie Gentry’s song, “Ode to Billie Joe”.

What’s interesting about “Clothes Line Saga” is just how incredibly, thoroughly inferior the writing is compared to the Bobbie Gentry song it supposedly parodies, or possibly attempts to mimic, essentially in homage. The fact that critics and ‘Dylanologists’ even actually debate whether Dylan was parodying or paying respects to “Ode to Billie Joe” inadvertently addresses yet another substantiation of Bob’s ineptitude: often no one can at all discern for certain if he’s trying to be funny or serious—there’s nothing sly going on; he’s simply that inarticulate, clumsy, impotent. (Yet even when it’s absolutely obvious that humor is in fact Dylan’s objective, he invariably fails miserably—we’ll briefly look at his inability to write comedy, in passing, in the following section.)

Though Southern Gothic is not a literary milieu that appeals to me personally, Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe” is clearly a stunningly successful piece from that school of storytelling; carefully, cleverly and evocatively constructed and written. Everything in it works, and works near-perfectly.

Dylan’s parody is hack garbage—hack garbage with a big smarmy smirk on its face. And now let’s be clear: this isn’t a situation in which something is ‘brilliantly smart’ due to it pretending to be hack work. No, this is the real thing. The fact the shallow Dylan apparently thought himself capable of lampooning “Ode to Billie Joe”—or creating work of similar ethos and commensurate quality, if you wish to assert that was his woefully unskilled aim—but ends up falling so blatantly and completely flat on his face makes the entire fiasco ever more insufferable and revealing.

Bobbie Gentry brilliantly incorporates believable quotidian mundanities throughout her song as a literary device lightly obscuring the profound confessional that’s the heart of the piece—the critical, pivotal facts of which she tantalizingly and skillfully never fully reveals—and, most substantively, to beautifully capture the oblivious but entirely innocent self-absorption that permeates most human preoccupation and behavior.

Bungling Bob Dylan writes only lumbering mundanities, unfunny and unbelievable, adds in what he obtusely thinks is a ‘killer line’ about a Vice-President, and smugly presumes himself quite the clever boy—completely missing the point. He literally doesn’t get what’s going on. In the end, his song is proved to indeed be a joke—yes, he’s trying to parody. But the ‘joke’ is lightweight Dylan and his vainglory.

So could one parody—capably parody—“Ode to Billie Joe”? Sure. The core of the story, of the song, is the uncertain twisted tale of the singer and Billie Joe MacAllister. And so the talented parodist would surely exploit that to reductio ad absurdum dimensions. It’s what the song is about. Our canny parodist might artfully insert a trivial non sequitur mundanity here and there, just as we think we may be unraveling the ever-more convoluted tale—to thwart that unraveling—before galloping off to add more layers to the onion, more red herrings and dead ends in the evolving and ever more unbelievable tall tale.

Dylan, however, seems to think that manufacturing any ostensibly ‘powerful event’ for the center of his strutting fabrications—his idiotic one line “the Vice President’s gone mad” interjection—suffices, because he doesn’t understand that the day-to-day humdrum conversations he’s talentlessly trying to mock are secondary. Making fun of those literary peripheries misses the point entirely.

Sheer incompetence.

There’s not time here for me to do side-by-side analyses of the two songs, but for anyone still unconvinced of Dylan’s utterly impoverished abilities, I urge you to compare them on your own. When the gulf between brilliance and stupidity is this cavernous, it won’t take long—Dylan’s work is just that incredibly bad.

“Ode to Billie Joe”:

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin’cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay.
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat;
And mama hollered out the back door, “Y’all remember to wipe your feet.”
And then she said, “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge:
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

And papa said to mama, as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
“Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please.
There’s five more acres in the lower forty I’ve got to plow.”
And mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge;
And now Billy Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

And brother said he recollected when he, and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?
“I’ll have another piece-a apple pie. You know, it don’t seem right.
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge;
And now ya tell me Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

Mama said to me, “Child, what’s happened to your appetite?
I’ve been cookin’ all morning, and you haven’t touched a single bite...
That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today;
Said he’d be pleased to have dinner on Sunday. Oh, by the way
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge;
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”

A year has come and gone since we heard the news ’bout Billy Joe.
And brother married Becky Thompson; they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going ’round; papa caught it, and he died last spring;
And now mama doesn’t seem to want to do much of anything.
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.101

“Clothes Line Saga”:

After a while we took in the clothes;
Nobody said very much.
Just some old wild shirts and a couple pairs of pants
Which nobody really wanted to touch.
Mama come in and picked up a book
An’ Papa asked her what it was.
Someone else asked, “What do you care?”
Papa said, “Well, just because.”
Then they started to take back their clothes,
Hang ’em on the line.
It was January the thirtieth
And everybody was feelin’ fine.

The next day everybody got up
Seein’ if the clothes were dry.
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed.
Mama, of course, she said, “Hi!”
“Have you heard the news?” he said, with a grin.
“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”
“Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night.”
“Hmm, say, that’s too bad!”
“Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about it,” said the neighbor.
“It’s just somethin’ we’re gonna have to forget.”
“Yes, I guess so,” said Ma
Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet.

I reached up, touched my shirt,
And the neighbor said, “Are those clothes yours?”
I said, “Some of ’em, not all of ’em.”
He said, “Ya always help out around here with the chores?”
I said, “Sometime, not all the time.”
Then my neighbor, he blew his nose,
Just as Papa yelled outside,
“Mama wants you t’ come back in the house and bring them clothes.”
Well, I just do what I’m told.
So, I did it, of course.
I went back in the house and Mama met me;
And then I shut all the doors.102

101“Ode to Bille Joe”, copyright 1967 by Bobbie Gentry. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

102“Clothes Line Saga”, copyright 1967 by Bob Dylan. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

Section 43

Dying is Easy, Comedy is Hard

Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down—but it takes a genius to make people laugh. — Stephen King

I fart in your general direction. — Graham Chapman

I think this section fits naturally after our overall look at Dylan’s work, because—after an introductory consideration on the global difficulty of writing comedy—we’ll briefly address Bob’s own record of failure in the form despite his many repeated attempts. And subsequently, we’ll move on to focus in on some aspects of writing comedic songs generally.

- - -

It seems that comedy is always disparaged as a lesser accomplishment in writing—disparaged by everyone but actual writers, that is, who know how hard it is to create and craft something that gets an honest laugh.103 On the other hand, there are great writers who’ve never written or even attempted Comedic Word One—so not having delivered real comedy can’t be a definitive criterion upon which to deny this or that writer’s talent and abilities.

Dylan is one who’s attempted to write comedy, but his bids have never risen above being—at the very most—just somewhat amusing. “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” and the rest of his several talkin’ blues efforts, “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”, “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”, “Po’ Boy”—none of them elicits more than an occasional anemic smile. And, as just noted, that he so regularly, determinedly tries to be funny—and falls so far short—is significant; and it hammers yet another nail into the coffin of that ridiculous, wince-inducing fanboy idiotism, “The greatest living user of the English language”.

We should go on a moment here to further observe that Dylan’s ‘humor’—if it can even be called that—is often really of the vituperative and vindictive variety. There’s a lot of repulsive venom mixed with a whole lot of snide misogyny throughout his œuvre.

“Idiot Wind”, “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”, “Positively 4th Street”—the list of songs heavy on spite, retribution and unbridled enmity is long. This alone is also not a definitive indictment of the writing—of the execution of all that malevolence; we’ve dealt with that consistent general ineptitude in previous sections—but certainly of intent and direction. There’s nothing uplifting in his unrelenting harangues—and there’s no humor with which to lighten all the bitterness and resentments, especially in those tirades directed toward women. Sneering sarcasm? Yes. Self-deprecating or affectionate levity? No. Hundreds of songs written; but to my knowledge not one engineering a genuine, intelligent laugh—and so many simply engorged with grudges, attempted smarty-pants denunciations and outright malice.

On the matter of actual comedy, however, my heart really goes out to him: he sure keeps on trying, pounding away. Perhaps one day he’ll succeed, and finally, finally earn that elusive honest, intelligent laugh.

Hey, it could happen.

Music and comedy are so linked. The rhythm of comedy is connected to the rhythm of music. They’re both about creating tension and knowing when to let it go. I’m always surprised when someone funny isn’t musical or someone musical isn’t funny. — Conan O’Brien

There’s nothing more difficult to do than comedy. — Robert Evans

Writing about comedy—well, writing coherently and insightfully about comedy, I mean—is nearly as difficult as writing comedy itself. From Aristotle to Sigmund Freud to Lenny Bruce, great thinkers have tried to figure out what the hell it is that makes someone laugh—and why.

Nevertheless, there are some aspects of comedy songwriting we can examine here; and some examples we may take as lessons, both positive and negative.

First off, one ‘general rule’ in a comedy song—and I mean a song that potentially delivers actual out-loud laughs—is that perfect rhymes (and generally, perfect meter) are the goal. I myself can’t think of a single truly effective—guffaw inducing—funny song that doesn’t overwhelmingly rely on perfect rhyme; and if anyone reading this can, please email with that counter-example. Not to be too facile or doctrinaire about it, but I think it’s very much part of ‘hitting the laugh squarely’: providing both a.) a fitting but unexpected resolution to preceding information, which is obviously the objective in any effort at humor, and b.) a strong secondary surprise, because even though listeners are expecting a rhyme, the one we give them is totally unexpected—and so together doubling the enjoyment and laughter. Since we’re using perfect rhymes, there’s a very limited number of words—or even fanciful ‘word manufactures’ if we’re going the Ogden Nash route105—that can fit. Listeners are already attempting to figure out the puzzle before the punchline rhyme arrives—they cannot help but be unconsciously trying to do so. And if they haven’t inferred it yet—correctly deduced it before they hear it supplied by us, the songwriters—we win, earning a bigger laugh.

Another consideration of a comedy song—and one which should be obvious, but is, surprisingly, regularly neglected—is that a real joke only comes along once. Because a chorus is heard more than once in a song, if the greatest laugh is supplied there, it will be run into the ground upon repeated hearing. And even if a laugh in the chorus isn’t the biggest in the song, the chorus should still be massaged—evolve, diverge, in its successive iterations—so the information there doesn’t grow stale.

There’s also the well-known Rule of Three—essentially, stacking a composition so that the strongest point, or in this case the biggest laugh, comes last, and after the ‘general frame’ has been properly set up.

A brilliant example of how to deal with a comedy song on pretty much all these points is Steve Sondheim’s “I Never Do Anything Twice”:

When I was young and simple—
I don’t recall the date—
I met a handsome captain of the guard.
He visited my chambers one evening rather late,
In tandem with a husky Saint Bernard.

At first I was astonished,
And tears came to my eyes.
But, later when I asked him to resume,
He said, to my surprise,
“My dear, it isn’t wise.
Where love is concerned one must freshen the bloom.”

chorus 1:

“Once, yes, once for a lark.
Twice, though, loses the spark.
One must never deny it,
But after you try it you vary the diet.”
Said my handsome young guard.
“Yes, I know, but it’s hard.
But no matter how nice,
I never do anything twice.”
La la da da de-ah da dum....

I think about the baron
Who came at my command,
And proffered me a riding crop and chains.
The evening that we shared
Was meticulously planned;
He took the most extraordinary pains.
He trembled with excitement;
His cheeks were quite aglow;
And afterword he cried to me, “Encore!”
He pleaded with me so to have another go;
I murmured caressingly, “Whatever for?”

chorus 2:

Once, yes, once for a lark.
Twice, though, loses the spark.
Once, yes, once is delicious;
But twice would be vicious—
Or just repetitious.
Someone’s bound to be scarred.
Yes, I know that it’s hard.
But, no matter the price,
I never do anything twice.
La la la la la la la la la la....

And then there was the abbot
Who worshipped at my feet;
Who dressed me in a wimple and in veils.
He made a proposition which
I found rather sweet—
And handed me a hammer and some nails.
In time we lay contented,
And he began again,
By fingering the beads around our waists.
I whispered to him then,
“We’ll have to say amen.”
For I had developed more catholic tastes.

chorus 3:

Once, yes, once for a lark.
Twice, though, loses the spark.
As I said to the abbot,
“I’ll get in the habit, but not in the...habit.
You’ve my highest regard,
And I know that it’s hard.
Still, no matter the price,
I’d never do anything twice.”

chorus 4:

Once, yes, once can be nice;
Love requires some spice.
If you’ve something in view,
Or something to do, totally new,
I’ll be there in a trice.
But I never do anything twice.
Except—
No, I never do anything twice!106

If sung by a performer who can act, the laughs here begin almost from the get-go, with the second line.107 Each of the three verses ups the comedy. And the only repeated parts of the chorus, aside from the title line itself, are the very quick “Once, yes, once for a lark / Twice, though, loses the spark,” and the “Yes, I know that it’s hard”—a double-entendre that’s not even pushed. Everything else in each of the four runs through that chorus is entirely new information, shepherding our interest and eliciting yet more laughs. This is dazzling songwriting.108

One aspect of comedy songs so obvious and so easily resolved I almost roll my eyes at the necessity of addressing it concerns titling—and mis-titling. The slight but delightful “Thank God and Greyhound” (written by Larry Kingston and Earl Nix) gives the entire joke away in the song title. “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” (Edward Kleban and Marvin Hamlisch), from the musical A Chorus Line, famously thudded by with nary a chuckle during preview performances—until the creative participants realized the reason for the leaden reception was that the original title, “Tits and Ass” (the recurring jocular exclamation in the lyrics) appeared right there in the printed program’s song list, giving away the entire surprise before the evening even began! A simple title change turned it from show-filler into show-stopper. The recurrent ‘killer line’ will certainly still be the ‘title’ used when colloquially discussing a comedy song—no way around that. In every case where a calculatedly obfuscating Official Title is used, however, it’s one small step in the right direction achieved by the songwriters. Obtusely broadcasting the punchline to everyone before the joke is even introduced, on the other hand, kinda doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. (A song like, say, the Shel Silverstein penned “A Boy Named Sue” is a somewhat different animal, insofar as the title here, while obviously the crux of the story, isn’t the killer laugh line in the song, but rather the device around which to hang the singer’s predicament. As much fun and as entertaining as it is, this song is really more a shaggy dog story or moral fable than an outright comedy song—as is another song that’s similarly conceived: Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant”.)

Summary question: So does a comedy song—a song intended to elicit laughter—require adherence to the same various directions and proscriptions derived from the lessons learned in other songs we’ve looked at earlier? Absolutely. In fact, how these insights all pertain to so-called ‘lighter material’ is that if the intent is to provoke real laughter, then the words and arrangement of words surely require even greater precision and elegance, comedy being perhaps more than any other assignment of language the most dependent upon rock-solid construction and articulation for effectiveness. There’s no real win in a listener afterwards indulgently—entirely half-heartedly—commenting, “I get what he was trying to say, and it was kinda funny.”....

103Similarly, in just about every other creative exercise—from painting to dance to composing music to simple public speaking (aka stand-up comedy)—creating a presentation that gets an honest laugh is invariably recognized by actual practitioners as an exceedingly difficult challenge, and generally as the most profoundly satisfying accomplishment if achieved.

105Example: “Who wants my jellyfish? / I’m not sellyfish!” Or perhaps think of Yip Harburg’s great use of the technique in many of the songs in The Wizard of Oz.

106“I Never Do Anything Twice”, copyright 1976 by Stephen Sondheim. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

107I recommend a rendition done by Lara Bruckmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mf33LcIe1A. Too many very good singers simply aren’t good actors; and a song like this, so loaded with great lines, is cheated by an inferior performance.

108Probably the weakest manufacture here is the “fingering the beads around our waists” phrase—while it’s certainly workable, it’s contrived, drawing some unwanted attention to itself in the moment. And, indeed, the songwriter’s eventually obvious objective here was to somehow set up the great capping line, “For I had developed more catholic tastes”, a good solid laugh. (Yet with all the other rhymes available I wonder if this was the best that could have been achieved. Some attractive alternatives to ‘waists’ include chaste [or unchaste], haste, disgraced, debased, raced, erased. Sondheim, however, is a rigid traditionalist who works only in strictly perfect rhymes, and none of these choices easily becomes a plural by adding that necessary-for-a-perfect-rhyme ‘s’. Obviating that craft reservation, however—and so working for the rhymes just offered—might be to have gone with the final word used as a singular: “catholic taste”. While the usual formulation of the phrase ‘catholic tastes’ is in the plural, it’s arguable whether using it in the singular here would be a noticeable divergence. Yes? No? Far too much analysis for such a minor consideration?.... Well these, ladies and gentlemen, are the kinds of questions with which a true master, as Sondheim most certainly is, regularly wrestles.)

Section 44

If Ya Wanna Send A Message109....

When you cry “Forward!” you should without fail make plain what direction to go. — Anton Chekhov

I don’t want to spend a lot of time here, but a quick look into songs that attempt to be anthems—songs that aspire to be political manifestos or socio-cultural proclamations—might be worthwhile.

The insight we’ll derive is that there is, occasionally, a construction—and anthems are one such—in which lack of specificity can be a defensible attribute. As with any other objective, it’s the execution of the idea that accredits authority, or even legitimacy.

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Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” in 1940 as a direct response to Irving Berlin’s 1938 “God Bless America”, which he thought pretentiously jingoistic—perhaps especially as performed by the song’s first prominent purveyor, the often insufferably bombastic Kate Smith. Unfortunately, Guthrie’s effort is much the inferior to Berlin’s. And I say ‘unfortunately’ because Guthrie’s impetus and world view are so much more informed and progressive than Berlin’s unsophisticated and—well, yes, jingoistic—boosterism.

A song that is meant to be a large and general exaltation, a feat to which an ‘anthem’ most certainly aspires, may quickly diminish by limitations imposed by actual mention of specifics. In the Guthrie, we get, almost right off the bat, “California”, “New York island”, “redwood forests” (read: California once again) and “Gulfstream waters”. The last is the only of the four that doesn’t apply solely to one very small part of the wide country Guthrie wishes to address. What, there’s nothing in Montana to extol? Virginia? Minnesota? Nebraska? Berlin’s much more expansive and inclusive generalized descriptions—“the mountains”, “the prairies”, “the oceans”—leave hardly any region uncovered. (Well, maybe the lowlands and swamps of my native Gulf Coast Deep South, but the fact that no other actual specifics are noted—California, New York, etc—would tend mitigate such reservations, as Berlin has certainly checked off most of the countryside in his lyrics.) He’s also traversed the topography in logical sequence: highlands, flatlands, coastal edges. Guthrie simply sweeps back and forth—and, critically, kinda innocently ignores what’s since been often pejoratively called ‘flyover country’. Berlin’s effort is simply much stronger—again, more inclusive via its lack of specificities.

What also makes “God Bless America” work far better as an anthem, frankly, is Berlin’s great, rousing melody. I mean, WOW. Can anyone not be moved to standing-at-attention martial swagger experiencing that tune married to those lyrics? (We’ll deal with the strictly musical side of songwriting later, in Part Four.) While I’m no big fan of writing which submits to “God”, the pantheistic tenor of Berlin’s title line, within the context of something which is frankly equally as specious and manufactured—an implied cohesive and lock-stepped national identity—seems entirely consonant. It’s a great piece of work.

A quick glance at a few other would-be anthems may be instructive before we move on.

“We Shall Overcome”, mentioned earlier, is another anthem which traffics in large generalities—even more amorphously than does the Berlin.110 And its continued application as a political motivating and organizing tool, world-wide, speaks volumes.

Dylan’s superficial and leaden “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, as also noted earlier, is more a confused, disengaged shoulder shrug than something of substance. Nothing is proposed, and nothing is asserted beyond muddled complaints, all capped with a smug Reader’s Digest Faux-Folk triviality. A dated and embarrassing artifact; no more.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Give Peace A Chance” is mostly a disposable nonsense chant rather than a considered song, except for the elegantly simple and repetitively effective chorus. There’s not really much going on in the verses that’s worth dissecting—and it’s another dated artifact—but there is obviously an emphatically clear and idealistic, albeit self-aware and innocently unsophisticated, political point of view in evidence.

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The last ‘would-be anthem’ we’ll look at here doesn’t further substantiate points made above, but I feel compelled to address it because it’s such an unfortunate and warped failure—derived from such an oustanding inciting conception: Mick Jagger and Keith Richard’s “Salt of the Earth”.

Let’s drink to the hard working people.
Let’s drink to the lowly of birth.
Raise your glass to the good and the evil;
Let’s drink to the salt of the earth.

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier;
Spare a thought for his back breaking work.
Say a prayer for his wife and his children,
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth.

chorus:

And when I search a faceless crowd;
A swirling mass of gray and
Black and white.
They don’t look real to me;
In fact, they look so strange.

Raise your glass to the hard working people.
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads.
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead.

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter.
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows,
And a parade of the gray suited grafters;
A choice of cancer or polio.

chorus
repeat111.......—

This is a song idea with genuine promise…that evolves into a gigantic stinkeroo. What a wonderful, evocative idea from which to begin, though! ‘Let’s stand back a moment, appreciate fully what we behold—the great struggling masses of all we brothers and sisters—and defiantly salute they so often overlooked, disparaged, or outright dismissed.’ Great! I love this—indeed, wish I’d thought of that inspirational opening line and its implicit repetitive trajectory myself.

However, lyricist Mick Jagger—who regularly lards an initial intriguing idea with tripe, diminishing the ultimate finished song—nowhere evinces that tendency to greater liability than here in “Salt of the Earth”. What begins as a salute to—even an exaltation of— working class scruples and endurance becomes, instead, Jagger’s apparent elitist consternation that such people even inhabit His World. We end, really, with nothing less than Lordly Disdain. As early as the very second line, “Let’s drink to the lowly of birth”, there’s an implicit (if not explicit) patronization connoted. (You’ve just separated yourself from those about whom you write, Mick—from ‘them’—so this can be justifiably understood to be your condescending judgment, not something fraternally descriptive.) Perhaps an arguably captious and picayune objection so early on, yes, yet the unavoidably clear divorce from identification and solidarity—along with the singer’s barely disguised actual disgust—grows to truly colossal dimensions as the writing extends.

Just look again at those lyrics above, and especially that chorus.

What a depressing coöptation of what could have been a grand proclamation of pride, admiration and support. There’s a reason one never hears the song within a political context—it’s a jumbled monstrosity, really; insultingly self-satisfied and scornfully patronizing. From such a beautiful and empowering initial idea—such a brilliant introductory laudation! Had Jagger continued the simple litany of admirable working class traits and accomplishments, adding in a proud and confident chorus which affirms the eventual ascendance of working people and democratic values in the history-long war against oligarchy and greed, this could have grown into a majestic acclamation. Sadly, it’s a missed opportunity—and a literal mess.

109“If you wanna send a message, use Western Union!” is a line credited, probably apocryphally, to film producer Samuel Goldwyn. No, Sam, if you wanna send a message, just do it adroitly. To quote someone on the other end of the political spectrum from Goldwyn, with a statement complementary to mine just made, here’s Mao Zedong: “Works of art which lack artistic quality have no force, however progressive they are politically.”

110This song has such a long and disputed history that for our purposes here it may be best to simply credit the writing to the four persons named on the 1960 copyright, Zilphia Horton, Guy Carawan, Frank Hamilton, and Pete Seeger, even though they themselves carefully credited the work as an ‘arrangement’ of an earlier song, the authors of which were unknown to them. The history of “We Shall Overcome”, actual and surmised, is fascinating but outside the scope of this manifesto—except to note that it’s another example of the real folk process.

111“Salt of the Earth”, copyright 1968 by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. — Mark Twain

As we prepare to conclude Part Three (Lyrics), and segue into the briefer Part Four (Music and Production), two songs by Paul McCartney come to mind that in very simple, almost textbook manner may help to summarize.

There’s debate within music history circles about what song is the most successful in history—‘most successful’ being variously defined. If simple number of performances is the standard, the consensus Number One is “Happy Birthday to You”, by Patty and Mildred Hill. Other contenders for ‘most successful song in history’ include “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin, and either “Auld Lang Syne” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, authors unknown. I myself remember a long time ago reading that the most successful song, monetarily—the song that has produced the most money in royalties—was “You Are My Sunshine” by Jimmy Davis and Charles Mitchell. So who really knows? But if limited to songs from the last half-century, the general agreement is that the most successful popular song of the period—certainly the most-covered song of the period—is “Yesterday” by Paul McCartney, with upwards of two thousand recorded versions.

McCartney reported in an interview that he had once, from simple curiosity, listened sequentially to several cover versions of his “Yesterday”, just to enjoy the variety of performances of the song.112 While doing so, he was surprised to discover that in renditions by three of his personal idols, Frank Sinatra, Marvin Gaye and Elvis Presley, all three of them had changed the lyrics in the chorus, and all in the exact same manner.

Here is that chorus, as originally written by McCartney and performed by the Beatles:

Why she had to go
I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.
I said something wrong;
Now I long for yesterday.113

And as changed by Sinatra, Gaye and Presley, with their addition underlined:

Why she had to go
I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.
I must have said something wrong;
Now I long for yesterday.113

In the interview it seemed to amuse but elude him why all three would make the alteration.

But the fact is the chorus actually doesn’t hold together as written. You don’t know why she “had to go”, Paul, immediately followed by the unqualified assertion that you “said something wrong”? So then, you do know why she had to go—why did you just say you didn’t? It makes no sense. His three idols all recognized that lyrical lapse and tried to correct for it, each arriving at the same formulation to do so: “I must have said”—as opposed to McCartney’s “I said”. The alteration displays an uncertainty that allows the preceding “I don’t know” to play believably. You absolutely don’t know, but you guess or presume—as opposed to you absolutely don’t know but you absolutely do know.

Interesting, further, is to note that Sinatra’s, Gaye’s and Presley’s interpolation actually burdens the melody with two additional syllables that have to be squeezed into the line reading—it’s not at all as elegant a fit as McCartney’s original. But these three performers, consummate singers all, felt the trade-off was more than necessary for them to convey an authoritative and believable rendition of the otherwise great song. The lyrics had to be pounded around a bit to make the lines sensibly cohere.

And this, folks, is about as good an illustration—as good a capsule lesson—as we may find of what makes and doesn’t make great songwriting.

The now well-known story of McCartney’s original ‘scratch’ lyrics also offers us something for examination and discussion. After the tune itself came to him—reportedly while he was in bed, half-asleep, and which he sang into a tape recorder he kept on a bed-side table—he used a nonsense line, “Scrambled eggs, oh my darling how I love your legs”, as a place holder for a few weeks, until he could come up with something he thought worthy of the strikingly original melody.

But “scrambled eggs” does actually work—if one is willing to settle for an execution from the School of Poetic Lyrics songwriting. Hey, why not? I’m quite serious. The words sit perfectly on the melody line, and the nonsense of “scrambled eggs” is followed by the clearly communicated thinking of “oh my darling how I love your legs”. And how, in fact, is that substantively different from any number of idiotically clunking Dylan lines praised as ‘actual poetry’?

But let’s step away for a minute to ponder the lyrics (and title) that McCartney did come up with and kept. Here’s John Lennon’s thoughts on the song:

The lyrics to “Yesterday” don’t resolve to any real sense. They’re good lines—they certainly work—but if you read the whole song, they don’t say anything. You don’t know what happens. She left and he wishes it were yesterday—that much you get, but it doesn’t really resolve.114

Allowing for professional jealousy—as noted, “Yesterday” is by far the most covered Beatles song—Lennon still does make a valid point.115 The song is at most a lament and nothing more. But I think the merit in Lennon’s discountenance is far outweighed by the beauty and depth of what is simply a paean to lost love, the lost love that was here but yesterday. Just the title, immediately followed by that brilliant strategic pause, says everything we need to hear to ease us into the heart of the song.

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In Section 16, we took apart a song by McCartney that was on a much lower level of accomplishment than “Yesterday”, his “And I Love Her”. The lyrics to that song are, to be blunt, embarrassingly bad to the point of being just plain stupid.

But two and possibly three or even four aspects of the song do elevate it, somewhat, above its patent vapidity—or at least merit attention. And as we’re about to move on to musical matters, this is perhaps a good place to begin addressing how melody and production can ameliorate, even obscure, wholesale mediocrity.

Lead guitarist George Harrison’s elegantly uncomplicated, disciplined and repetitive four note riff in “And I Love Her” is one of those occasional appurtenances—supporting musical flourishes—that immediately becomes intrinsic to a song, a riff as integral to it as are any of the lyrics themselves. Encountering a rendition that eliminated that riff would strike as odd or even bereft. It doesn’t make the lyrics any less dumb, but it does slightly draw our attention elsewhere, away from them.

McCartney’s simple and effective melody and the chords he uses to arrange it are—as with so many McCartney compositions—quite different from the obvious and predictable. And again, lightening the load of the burdensome writing.

And the final chord in “And I Love Her” is so unexpected that it alone is a noteworthy diversion and elevation from the norm.116 I wonder if it was McCartney or Harrison—or maybe producer George Martin—who came up with it. Someone else?

The key change half-way through, while not at all an unusual development, also possibly deserves mention.

This is all wonderful stuff—there’s really nothing second-rate about it. But I think few can argue that those slogging and utterly artless lyrics—the ostensible pretext for the melody, arrangement, orchestration and performances, no?—are simply inane. These lyrics do not even deserve hearing—much less being carried by an appealing tune and performances.

113“Yesterday”, copyright 1965 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Quoted here as permitted within the Fair Use provisions of 17 U.S.C.§107.

114“Playboy Interview”, Playboy, September, 1980.

115“Yesterday” was a 100% McCartney written and composed song. But it is always legally properly credited to “John Lennon and Paul McCartney”, as it is in the above footnote—a fact that, understandably, continues to somewhat irk McCartney decades on.

116Rather than resolve on the expected tonic chord, in this case an F, it ends on a D, which is distinctively unusual and—in this situation—emotionally uplifting. Lennon and McCartney—the latter especially—regularly ventured forth with musical ideas wholly foreign to popular song composition at the time.

It would be nice to accidentally overhear someone whistle something of mine, somewhere, just once. — Leonard Bernstein117

Time to talk about the role of music and melody—and we’ll go to Broadway and the West End for an initial insight.

The two most successful musical theater composers of recent decades, clearly, are Stephen Sondheim, winner of the ‘critics darling’ sweepstakes, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, winner of the ‘money in the bank’ competition.118 It’s been often said that while Lloyd Webber would surely kill to gain favor with the intelligentsia, Sondheim would surely do the same to get just one big hit song.

When Sondheim lectures on songwriting—a task he has done often during his career—one of the points he regularly makes is that anyone can create a memorable melody.119

How? By simply repeating it often enough.

There is some obvious truth in the statement, of course. Play something often enough, and people certainly will be more likely to remember it. (And as Lloyd Webber’s scores do return to and reprise his themes with regularity, Sondheim’s pronouncement is also, of course, a sly dig at those who, like Lloyd Webber, have achieved wider commercial success.120 The implication, apparently, is that if Sondheim were inclined to similarly reprise his themes with more regularity and prominence, he’d also have oodles of pop hits.)

But surprisingly, given his acute authority on songwriting, he ignores even mentioning (in his talks that I’ve heard, anyway) the actual mysterious power that a great melody has and delivers to a finished song.

Just because a musical passage is reprised, it does not at all follow that the melody must therefore innately be of lesser impact or beauty. After all, I note that while I myself have probably heard Sondheim’s biggest ‘hit’, “Send in the Clowns”, hundreds and hundreds of times over the years—which means that melody is pretty danged familiar(!)—on any given day I’m still far more likely to inadvertently have any of more than a dozen Lloyd Webber tunes sneak unconsciously onto my mental play list. “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, “Love Changes Everything”, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, “Memory”, “Another Suitcase in Another Hall”, “Music of the Night”, “Tell Me On a Sunday”, the list goes on—and this despite the fact that lyrically, most (but definitely not all) are far beneath the level of accomplishment evinced in Sondheim’s better efforts.

Andrew Lloyd Webber—like lucky others in a very diverse universe, including, to greater or lesser extent, Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvæus, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, Ric Ocasek, Brian Wilson, whoever were/are the primary composers in the Sex Pistols (presumably Glen Matlock?) and Green Day (Billie Joe Armstrong?) and more—was endowed with a Gift For Melody; and I put the term in majuscule advisedly. Stephen Sondheim has composed some unquestionably excellent music, and he’s a peerless lyricist, but to his everlasting disappointment he wasn’t awarded that Gift For Melody.

Yes, it’s as simple—and as mysterious—as that. It can be a test having to acknowledge great melodies that have come from creators—acts and composers—we may personally find unbearable on most other fronts, but the gift is awarded indiscriminately.

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One might infer the above is an argument for the primacy of melody in songwriting, but that’s incorrect, and it misses the point entirely.

117I don’t think Leonard got out enough. I myself find many of his tunes—from West Side Story and Candide especially—delightfully memorable.

118Stephen Sondheim: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, Company, Sunday in the Park With George, Merrily We Roll Along, Passion, A Little Night Music. Andrew Lloyd Webber: Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express, Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, The Woman in White.

119Sondheim has also written two outstanding books which brilliantly dissect and analyze his own work and work by other lyricists: Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes and Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany. Both are highly recommended.

120Lloyd Webber’s ‘borrowings’ from works by other composers notwithstanding, the melodic gift evinced in his entirely original compositions should be beyond dispute.

Section 47

Didn’t I Just Hear That Song in a Commercial for Paper Towels? Insurance? Chewing Gum?

The song is ended, but the melody lingers on. — Irving Berlin120

Let me ask the question from the other side. If music—especially melody—is the most important component of a song, with lyrics being secondary, why then aren’t we all merrily strolling down the street belting out advertising jingles?

Once again, decouple yourself from extraneous considerations. Because—like it or not; and all effort to maintain ‘cool’ put aside—there’s no doubt that intrinsically inventive and affecting tunes have been regularly composed for radio and TV commercials.

So what then, if anything, is ultimately the difference between a catchy beer commercial and a catchy but vapid pop song? It’s certainly nothing to do with the music.

I think one can register a definitive answer, however.

What stands out in highest relief in a commercial jingle is the name of the company or product being pushed—that’s obviously The Whole Idea. But few people would wish to be overheard singing the praises of Burger King, Toys R Us or Chevy Trucks, whether doing so consciously or unconsciously. It’d be just a tad too boorish for even the crassest vulgarian.

It’s this ultimate ‘line in the sand’ we draw which well-illustrates that even the most appealing melody won’t relegate what’s being sung to irrelevance. There actually is a bottom line—a base level of fatuousness, of cynicism in what’s being delivered in language—that we just won’t allow ourselves to cross.

Good for that, I guess.

Yet, sadly, the mass of us has been conditioned to parrot and applaud just about any incoherent nonsense above that line, no matter how embarrassingly incompetent, inarticulate, morally corrupt, or just plain stupid.

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Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. — Bill Watterson

If we go a step further, to separate out ad jingles with lyrics that mention the product being hawked—so leaving just jingles with vacuous lyrics written to paint a bland serviceable background for promoting the product without mentioning it—the differentiation between that latter kind of commercial jingle and run-of-the-mill pop song vacuities that folks might be heard singing or whistling on the street becomes more nebulous.

Indeed, there’s at least one ad jingle that ‘crossed over’ to become a major commercial hit pop song.

That was the song fragment created in 1970 solely and entirely to glorify a now-defunct California bank in a saccharine TV ad campaign. (It was subsequently rented out to other banks across the country for copy-cat regional campaigns, and used again as a commercial theme as recently as 2016, for Lowe’s Building Supplies.)

The idea was that young marrieds starting their life together needed this whimsically warm and just plain wonderful bank to guide them and help them along. (Yeah, right.) On assignment from the ad agency, songwriters Roger Nichols and Paul Williams composed a tune and wrote a couple of mushy verses to be heard behind various clips of a dreamy, soft-focus couple on their wedding day. And that was supposed to be the end of it.

But later, expanded, and then recorded by the Carpenters (and so promoted commensurate with that act’s then major weight in the pop music industry)—abetted as well, certainly, by the ubiquitous television commercials themselves—the now full-fledged song became a major hit. Titled “We’ve Only Just Begun”, it did at least contain a recognizable and resonant theme, albeit still streaked with pie-eyed superficiality. The song was number one on the Billboard charts for seven weeks, Grammy-nominated for song of the year, put on Rolling Stone’s ”500 All-Time Greatest Songs” list, and etcetera.

Repeating: it was a TV commercial, folks.

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You do a commercial, you’re off the artistic roll call forever. End of story—you’re another corporate fuckin’ shill; another whore at the capitalist gangbang.

— Bill Hicks

Aside: Discussions of commercial jingles—and of popular songs used ‘as is’ in commercials—are generally focused on whether the songwriters and act have Sold Out, lost whatever presumed authenticity (read ’anti-establishment cred’) they may have carefully nurtured. There’s a lot of money to be had, after all, if one wishes to finally cash in a purported reputation for independence acquired during an industrially successful career—be that reputation actual or (as in 99% of the cases) just hype. “We’ve established what you are, now we’re just haggling over price”, goes the old punch line. So it’s certainly affirming to see Neil Young, for one, build a so-far impenetrable wall between his songs and the always ready onslaught of lucrative commercial financial offers awaiting should he waiver. (Of course one need keep in mind both that Young is already rich [estimated net worth: $65 million] and that his reputed unpredictable iconoclasm is fundamental to his marketed persona and that resultant wealth. Still, there should be no debate that self-respect is too easily jettisoned—if it was ever really there to begin within the maelstrom of capitalist enticement—and so hats off to Young on this one.)

And then there’s the acts crassly calculating from the actual get-go, cynically drooling over the possibility of ‘branding’ and selling their reputations, name, work—hell, mothers, if they can get a price—in any way, to any taker, anywhere....

But the above ponderings wander away from what we’re attempting to examine here: the strictly melodic and musical side of songs heard in a commercial context.

And so to repeat—like it or not—some of the most memorable melodies of recent decades were created for television and radio commercials. And while a significant reason for that memorability is simple repetitive over-exposure within massive advertising campaigns, that isn’t the whole story. A good melody is a good melody is a good melody—no matter where it originates nor where or how it’s employed.

To dismiss or disparage a tune because it was created to specifically serve a commercial purpose is assertively obtuse—as is subordinating appreciation for a melody to one’s like or dislike of the act or songwriter(s) who composed it and/or performed it.

Section 48

Should We Use a Number 37-A? Or a Number 37-B?

There are so many different kinds of stupidity, but cleverness is one of the worst. — Thomas Mann

A couple of personal real world experiences as we move on:

I recall many years ago, working as a stagehand on a Broadway bound show—a show that was a mess, really; just an ego trip for the star and pretty forgettable. The specific incident that comes to mind was listening to the director, choreographer, lighting designer and star go on for far too long, debating the color of just one of the hundreds of lights in the production. “Should we use a 48-A pink gel or a 48-B pink gel?” The actual numbers of the color gels (tinted plastic sheets inserted in a holder attached to front of the lights themselves) are lost in memory, naturally, and the difference between the two colors was effectively imperceptible, but the seriousness of their debate remains. Don’t misunderstand, there was no animosity or ‘power-jockeying’ in evidence; each professional was in good spirits and simply trying to contribute his and her best. And a great finished artistic creation most certainly does require attention to the smallest details.

But given the utterly pedestrian show itself, and the massive amount of money already invested in it, I was tempted to stroll over, lightly tap one of ’em on the shoulder, and patiently explain—patiently but firmly explain: “HOLD ON! THAT’S NOT A PROBLEM! BUT IF YOU WANNA SAVE THIS FRIGGIN’ TURKEY, CLOSE IT DOWN AND RE-WRITE THE DUMB SCRIPT!”

And, of course, the show eventually died on the road, long before ever even seeing New York in the far off hazy distance.

I occasionally think back to that ‘life lesson’ when pondering a particularly barren, but clearly very professionally produced, popular song.

A complementary message comes from time working in Hollywood studios. While, again, it’s important to do professional quality work, the bottom-line resolution often shared among co-workers goes something like this: “Look, we will do the best we can with what we have to work with. But in the end, if anyone notices that wall over there is tilted an eighth of an inch, or the color of the dress the actor is wearing now varies ever so slightly from the one worn two scenes ago...there are BIG script problems with this show, and actors who can’t ACT!”

In contemporary entertainment, the effort put into ‘polishing the turd’, ‘re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic’, ‘putting lipstick on a pig’—pick your cliché—is regularly far, far out of proportion to the quality of what’s being actually delivered to the audience.

All the musical and technical expertise and experience in the world isn’t going to make a poorly written song any less stupid. But, no question, it will make a stupid song sound professional.

So hold on, what do you think? Should we use the 37-A pink gel, or the 37-B? Take all the time you need. It’s pivotally important.

Section 49

On Brightly Wrapped Packages

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. — William Shakespeare

There’s a perhaps apocryphal story concerning the song “Moon River”, by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, which will lead us into this section.

The wives of both men were reportedly seated together at a party one time, when another guest, upon being introduced to them, instantly and visibly brightened. To Mancini’s wife, the guest raved, “Oh, your husband wrote ‘Moon River’!” Before Ms Mancini could reply, Mercer’s wife swiftly interjected, “No, no, no! Henry Mancini wrote, ‘daaa, da, daa, da, da, da, da, daaa...’ MY husband, Johnny Mercer, wrote ‘Moon River’.”

And yes, there’s a whole lot of important information wrapped up in that anecdote.

Even if a melody comes first and even if it’s a truly glorious composition, once intelligible words are added they automatically become the primary partner in the combination, in the song.

The task of melody, of music, in a song with words is to support and enhance the lyrics—that is, again, especially if the lyrics purport or pretend to be of any actual significance. If not—if the lyrics are just ‘another layer of sound’—then, as we’ve noted earlier, the off-hand argument might be made that music is actually all that’s important.

But in fact even that argument falls flat on its face in the real world. Were it the case, vocalists wouldn’t play the predominant role they do, ‘fronting’ 99% of all popular music acts—even when the lyrics are the most inane drivel or downright unintelligible. The lead vocalist’s actual forte may be as an instrumentalist—or he or she may be the weakest player in the ensemble—but if the one also assigned to present the words; he or she generally is, ipso facto, ‘first among equals’ to the audience. And, of course, this is because we human beings seek the direct communication that language provides. We may intuit our way through the peripherals—the music, lights, the act’s mannerisms and affectations—and find plausible (read: personal) meaningful message therein, but we seek confirmation of that intuition through language, in the lyrics.

As put quite simply by Yip Harburg, “Music makes you feel. Words make you think. A song makes you feel a thought.”

But a casual inversion of that dictum—so “A song makes you think a feeling”—doesn’t quite resonate.

It is a suggested idea—as generally straight up indicated by the title, and then authenticated and amplified in the lyrics—that is served by the musical composition and production. Not the reverse.

Music allows lyrics to breathe; it can ingratiate them, and it may drive them as far as they can go dramatically. Music serves the lyrics—and it can do them a wonderful, powerful service, no doubt.

As we’ve established, however, without a capably expounded idea behind it all the song is at best a twisted folie à deux between songwriter and audience. That sometimes a great melody is saddled with lyrics that are outright abominable or downright incompetent is a particularly unfortunate fact of recent and contemporary popular song—it’s the legacy bestowed by the sanctification of Poetic Lyrics and its bastard progeny, the School of Not Giving A Damn. Just about any individual assertion of what’s being delivered for our consideration, if not entirely (or even remotely) defensible, is granted public concession. Why? “Because, hell, it’s got a really nice tune and we’d like to enjoy the danged thing without looking like complete idiots! Hey, work with us here! So let’s agree that if even if this song really doesn’t make any friggin’ sense, that it’s got—uh, er, um...a ‘feeling’? Come on! Please?”

No, let’s not agree on that. Because that is what makes us look like complete, gullible idiots.

In the contemporary culture, for a song to ‘succeed’ when the lyrics are plain stupid, the music (and after the music, the vocal and instrumental performances, and/or technical effects—and/or yes, by cascading defaults eventually devolving to just the posturing, hype, and marketing) must step forward to assume center stage in selling the whole package. As with “And I Love Her” or any number of similar other purportedly ‘great songs’, a handful of which have been looked at here, if we’re going to enjoy the finished creation, we’re effectively directed to ignore the primary raison d’être of the whole enterprise—what the song actually says, if anything—to concentrate on supporting aspects and elements.

And the primary supporting element, obviously, is melody (including arrangement and orchestration).

I’m regularly amused when seeing or reading something about studio musicians and their often exceptional accomplishments. In the whole article or video, there may be but one sentence, spoken in passing by one of the musicians, addressing the other side of the song, the lyrics. But then again, that’s obviously not really their concern—it’s not why they’re gathered in the recording studio. The song will be treated to the musical contributions of all these individual instrumental magicians, and good for that. But there is almost never any corresponding study and work done by similar ‘expert committee’ on the lyrics. The actual writing is either a fait accompli at that point, or, if attended to on scene at all, done so by one or at most two collaborators—and on the fly, because studio time is expensive.

Of course, the proper time to carefully, thoughtfully attend to the writing was a long time ago. Why wasn’t that done?121

121We’ll address a large part of that question below, in Section 53.

Section 50

A Blindingly Beautiful Gilded Frame Isn’t a Masterpiece Painting

It’s just loops, beats, rhymes and hooks...There ain’t no fucking song! The song is the power; the singer is the messenger. But the greatest singer in the world cannot save a bad song. I learned that 50 years ago, and it’s the single greatest lesson I ever learned as a producer. If you don’t have a great song, it doesn’t matter what else you put around it. — Quincy Jones122

And this is also the point, production in the recording studio, where manufacturing ostinati123 and ‘hooks’ becomes a primary, last-ditch task—creating musical ear worms so the song, no matter how banal and simplistic, becomes recognized, known, and yes, ‘satisfying’. This even if both the lyrics and the melody are effectively foolishness.

Earlier, I noted that a primary difference between a song and a performance of that song is that a live performance allows an act to divert attention away from lesser songwriting through a variety of diversions—but that any second-rate lyrics obviously remain in the actual song itself.

Attempts to obfuscate and deflect attention away from deficient writing and hack composing can be obtained in the recording studio as well, of course—often using many of the same diversions and evasions, along with additional avenues intrinsic to the recording process. The recording studio also allows the inclusion of whatever further musical or technical ideas can be conjured to create hooks—those catchy little audio identifiers that embed themselves in the listener’s hearing and make the recording of the song memorable—additional to what may’ve been already designed and obtained in the songwriting itself.

It’s very much akin to building a memorable, occasionally even stunningly gorgeous, frame—to go around a garage-sale, paint-by-numbers ’artwork’. Current adepts—the Max Martins, Dr Lukes, et al—have this down to predictable boring rote, and it’s why so many current popular songs actually do all sound sonically and structurally similar, be they pop, rock, country or hip-hop. The same hack devices—for example, the so-called ‘millennial whoop’124, or a short rap (or ‘rap-ish’) section shoe-horned into a pop or country song—appear over and over. And over.

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There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to teach young children have choruses and refrains. We are attracted to repetition, even as adults; we want the stimulus and the reward again and again, and in music we get it. Perhaps, therefore, we should not be surprised, should not complain if the balance sometimes shifts too far and our musical sensitivity becomes a vulnerability. — Oliver Sacks

Of course hard rock songs, in particular, have long made heavy reliance on endlessly repeated ‘signature riffs’, usually though not necessarily played by electric guitar. Many (most?) hard rock songs actually begin gestation with a riff. That riff—and possibly the recurrently sung title line of the song itself—then goes on to be banged and bleated out at drunken fraternity parties and Guitar Center showrooms forever after.125

All too often abetting the degrading of the definition of the word ‘song’ (and a primary reason it really is just a riff and a title line—again, this especially in hard rock efforts) are utterly unintelligible lyrics. It’s simply hard to sing or evaluate words that one simply can not, after any number of studious listens, comprehend. ALL we’re ‘given’ is a brick wall of incomprehensible bombast. Catchy cacophony. Amusing noise—with what the songwriters (and marketers) pray we think might be a real coherent thought inside. And if we don’t really care what the song is about or the actual words being sung—but are easily and eagerly swept up in the manufactured ‘excitement’—we’re exactly the audience the music industry (and its wannabe adherents in indie-land) cherish.

So okay, now! A test! We’ve heard it a million times, so we know the words by heart, right? READY? Let’s all sing it together! “SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT”! ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!!

123Repetitive musical phrases; guitar riffs obviously being the most common.

124A short prominent ‘warbling’ between the third and fifth of a chord, in recent years found ubiquitously manifest in radio-friendly pop songs. Its best-known appearance is probably in the song “California Gurls”, by Katy Perry, Lukasz Gottwald (aka Dr Luke), Max Martin, Bonnie McKee, and Calvin Broadus (aka Snoop Dogg).

125“Satisfaction”, anyone? “Seven Nation Army”? “Smoke on the Water”?

Section 51

Making Sausages

The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatsoever on an instrument known as a Versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound. — George Orwell, 1984

But just as with all the other peripheral trappings, the production of a recording has nothing, obviously, to do with the actual accomplishments or deficiencies in the writing. Music and production are there to serve ‘the idea of the song’—an idea we hope has been developed into an intellectually and emotionally satisfying whole. Because the present cultural epoch accolades self-absorption and exalts incoherence, however, it’s rare to find that desired substance and/or insight—we’re back to the songs like those of the 1950s: songs utterly reliant, ultimately, on incorporating the most calculated and occasionally technically sophisticated superficial gimmicks.

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There’s no reason to go on at more length here, but a fairly good look at much of current state-of-the-art pop music artifice and contrivance—and the desultory cynical smarminess of it all—is provided in John Seabrook’s well-written but somewhat star-struck survey, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory. While he finds it all rather mesmerizing (and, hey, in a morbid ‘hanging-out-at-a-horrific-traffic-accident’ way, it kinda is) a step back allows one to jettison wide-eyed awe and see the ultimately depressing and lowest-common-denominator machinery for what it actually is.

Because all that stuff is just a cheesy frame and a shipping crate, with an ominously looming sell-by date.

Section 52

Making Music

Composing music is not so much inspiration as it is hard work. — George Gershwin

It’s not really necessary that a song have a great melody for it to be a significant song. Though there’s certainly nothing really objectionable in any of them, some (though definitely not all) of the songs promoted in previous sections as first-rate work might be said to be musically predictable—even musically uninteresting, frankly.

But the addition of an affecting melody to substantive lyrics is obviously The Gold Standard. It’s why Berlin’s “God Bless America” soars and why “Yesterday” captivates. A great and fitting melody adds immeasurable color and depth to quality lyrics, sweeping us along and directing our attention to the nuances of what’s being presented.

And, as we’ve noted earlier, a great tune can obviate—or better, at least mitigate—antipathy for poorly-written lyrics, just as a great performance can lift a mediocre song to temporally marginal stature. In each event, what’s being augmented or even ennobled is the ‘egg’ of the song—the idea, as generally encapsulated in the title.

But it all begins with the idea, and how elegantly and insightfully it has—or has not—been amplified in the lyrics.

Yes, in the end, it almost always comes down to what’s being said. And when a musically engaging song is larded with bad writing, the embarrassment factor eventually enters into conscious cultural deliberations, and the song may remain in the canon being performed more commonly as primarily an instrumental (with perhaps just the chorus or the ‘least objectionable verse’, sung as a kinda inconsequential throw-away or introduction). This is arguably what’s happened to “Alabama Jubilee”, a 1915 song by George Cobb and Jack Yellen; one of the last popularly successful songs written in the black-face minstrel tradition. I expect that a similar fate awaits many quite lionized songs of more recent vintage, given the often less than stellar writing.

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It’s the lyrics that makes a song a hit, although the tune, of course, is what makes it last. — Irving Berlin

Musical erudition—a good education in the literal language and syntax of the trade—can be a great help in composing a tune, because many available options are easier to find if you know where to look. But honestly, it’s really not necessary. So many great melodies in popular song have been composed by musical illiterates. The gifted Paul McCartney—he of “Eleanor Rigby”, “Yesterday”, “Michelle”, and “Penny Lane”—can’t read or write a note. The great Irving Berlin composed all his songs in the key of F#—not because he was cultivated enough to think F# was a wonderful key, but rather because it allowed him to use mostly the easier-to-find black keys on the piano. Perhaps needless to add, he also couldn’t read or write music; and so every one of his compositions was actually written out by an amanuensis.

And as for instrumental mastery—it’s all too often not that but rather simply remarkable manual dexterity. A guitarist may be able to play a zillion notes a minute, cleanly, clearly, all up and down the guitar neck; but without applied taste it’s really no more than noodling. And even those instrumental masters who brilliantly know both their instrument and ‘when to play and when to lay back’ are not necessarily going to be capable composers. It has nothing to do, really, with the ability to compose an exciting or even engaging melody.

It’s also something of a sad waste to use brilliant instrumental talent in service of songs that are utterly pedestrian at best—somewhat reminiscent of what you get by engaging a brilliant woodworking craftsman to put together a room full of cheap IKEA particle-board furniture. It’ll all look (or in our case, sound) as good as it can, yes...for cheap IKEA particle-board furniture (or our empty-headed lyrical and musical nonsense).

On the other end of the spectrum, the persistent popular and critical glorification of ‘garage band esthetics’—exalting instrumental roughness and sloppiness that often borders on outright incompetence—is yet another illustration of the widespread posturing that infects popular music. A classic example is the citation of the Ramones as prototypically ‘simple and pure’ musical unsophisticates, which is actually just plain wrong. Band leader and guitarist Johnny Ramone, in particular, while not formally musically educated, had a clear understanding of what the band was about, and absolute mastery of his instrument within the carefully determined direction he pursued.126 The Ramones were not a musically makeshift or musically undisciplined operation. But their spawn all too often are.

On balance it’s good to be dismissive, or at least skeptical, of acts which essentially boast of their lack of instrumental aptitude as validation of purported ‘authenticity’.

- - -

By the way, do you think it’s impossible to compose a nice melody because you ‘just don’t have the goods’? Maybe you don’t, but it’s not really that hard to come up with an original tune.

Before continuing, let’s be absolutely clear I’m not saying it’s easy to compose a Stunningly Beautiful melody! Just—to repeat—that it’s not an insurmountable challenge to create an original one.

How?

Begin by playing a song you know, over and over. Not singing it, just playing it.

Then start diverting from it, going to different notes in the chords you’re playing than the ones in the extant melody. Go to entirely different chords as well here and there, so forcing your melody into new places. Sooner or later, with enough variations and explorations, you’ll have a melody that is so different from where you started that it is, indeed, no longer that tune with which you began this ‘journey of discovery’. Keep on modifying and molding until you’re really the only one who can know where it all began. It can be a slow, tedious process—lots and lots of trial and lots and lots of error—but at the end of the slog, you’ll have a new tune. Who knows how interesting it’ll actually be, but it will be original—unless, that is, you’ve inadvertently simply stumbled onto another, different already extant song.

Back in the day, this was a practice regularly employed by Tin Pan Alley songsmiths—they’d take the chord progression of a major hit of the era and simply go to different places within the confines of that progression. Remember, as we noted when discussing copyright earlier, a melody can be copyrighted but a chord progression can’t.

And no, there’s absolutely nothing at all illegitimate, unethical, or even uncreative about this process.

The tune I composed for a song called, “Nineteen Years Old”—about a true love that survived decades—used at least two structural concepts I directly, consciously ‘lifted’ from extant songs.127 The first five chords are the exact same first five chords found in “Memory” by Andrew Lloyd Webber. They’re also the first five chords of probably hundreds, even thousands, of other songs as well—but I took them from “Memory”, period. “Nineteen Years Old” is in a different time signature, however—which already distances it—and the melody is indeed entirely unrelated. And the final line of each verse, the refrain, was composed thinking of Bob Dylan’s “Memphis Blues Again”. The refrain in “Nineteen Years Old” is “When she was just nineteen years old, and I was twenty-three”. The refrain in “Memphis Blues Again” is “To be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again”. The phrasing of the lyrics is certainly similar; but it follows a different melody and chord route back to the final tonic chord. So, yes, it’s absolutely genuine and unique—but that’s very much where it came from.

So “Nineteen Years Old” is unquestionably an original melody—well, unless I maybe ended up with something that did already exist and was/am simply ignorant of that already existing song. (That kind of ignorant and independent composition can happen. One hopes it hasn’t, but one can be blind-sided, honestly not realizing he or she is using a tune he or she most certainly does know. Uh-oh! If caught early enough the new song can be changed enough to eliminate such an oversight. If not, well then prepare for a possible copyright infringement lawsuit; cf. George Harrison and “He’s So Fine”/“My Sweet Lord”.)

By the way, a third idea originating elsewhere that I incorporated in ”Nineteen Years Old” was inspired by a song written by Nashville songwriter Pierce Pettis. In his “Grandmother’s Song” he quotes the advertising slogan of now-defunct Southern Railways, “Southern Serves the South”, which I thought was a brilliant way of quickly providing a lot of background on a character in his song. I used an old US Navy recruiting slogan, “Join the Navy, See the World”, to similar intent.128

All of the above impulses were appropriate, properly assimilated, and ethical; make no mistake about that.129

An interesting variant of the old Tin Pan Alley ‘re-composing’ technique is called ‘vocalese’. Most famously, surely, is a 1952 vocalese song called “Moody’s Mood for Love”. Its birth was a 1949 instrumental improvisation played by jazz saxophonist James Moody of the song “I’m in the Mood for Love”, music by Jimmy McHugh, lyrics by Dorothy Field. Moody simply recorded his jazz take of the song, and thought that was the end of it. But singer Eddie Jefferson later wrote lyrics that strictly conformed with Moody’s improvised melody—and the resultant effort was proffered as a new song, “Moody’s Mood for Love”, a pop hit for a vocalist known as King Pleasure. McHugh soon after sued, and (as I understand it) due to some lyrical similarities—not musical ones—he and Fields won a partial judgment.

126Someone questioning this is directed to Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone; largely an expertly compiled and edited collection of various interviews and statements Ramone (real name John Cummings) gave during his career. In fact, along with the strictly personal recollections and usual lowbrow band relationship matters such a book necessarily includes, there’s plenty of solid insights on performance dynamics that any act could benefit mightily from assimilating.